We hear a lot about digg, Slashdot and del.icio.us as traffic drivers for media websites and blogs. But one site that doesn’t get enough props in this regard is StumbleUpon. In our recent Social Bookmarking Faceoff, we noted that StumbleUpon has the largest user base with 1,271,345 users. Its main rival in the space, del.icio.us, … Read more

Back in June I spoke about the corporate blogging project that I co-run with The Rights Marketing Company. Called Micro Media Corp, it’s a corporate blogging and podcasting program that aims to give business people insights into the Web 2.0 and New Media worlds. Our first major customer is British Telecom and we’re currently in … Read more

Lately there has been a lot of talk about new VoIP services that work without needing to be on your computer. Tonight two announcements were made: 1) Jajah Mobile, which claims to take the computer out of the Jajah equation. Now you can make Jajah calls directly from your existing mobile phone. 2) Rebtel, a … Read more

Google is making some bold moves to bring structured data into the mainstream search box. And in the process, it appears to be running over the top of microformats, the Web community’s open standards for structured data. Not to mention the challenge this will ultimately represent to eBay. According to a PC Advisor report, Google … Read more

Newly appointed Futurist-in-residence at the New York Times, Michael Rogers, spoke with Patrick Phillips from iwantmedia.com. I was particularly interested in what Rogers had to say about Times Reader, the hybrid web/desktop app built with Microsoft technology that aims to give a paper-like reading experience to the screen. He said that he doesn’t see paper … Read more

Pew has released its analysis of how the Internet will evolve over the next 14 or so years (2020). I’m inclined to agree with Om Malik that the conclusions about the technology are rather obvious: “a global, low-cost network will be thriving in 2020”, which will bring about a “‘flattening’ of the world”. You don’t … Read more

A new documentary on Silicon Valley premieres today on DVD. It was directed by my friend Steve O’Hear, who I met over the Web earlier this year and now work with on my corporate blogging project called Micro Media Corp. ‘In Search of the Valley’ is a movie which tells the story of three friends’ … Read more

Another busy week of Web Tech news and analysis. Here is what we covered on Read/WriteWeb during the week (number of comments in brackets)… OneWebDay: In Celebration Of The Web (2) – looks like this didn’t take off in a big way, judging by the lack of blogosphere love for it. I still think it’s … Read more

For some great weekend reading, check out this Fortune magazine article that gets inside the great Google brain. Some extracts that I enjoyed… “What emerges from months of interviews with employees ranging from fresh-out-of-college hires to the CEO is that Google firmly believes it has a framework for figuring out the future. It should come … Read more

Today is the first OneWebDay, a global awareness event to “create, maintain, advance and promote a global day to celebrate online life.” It was founded by Susan Crawford, associate professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York City. Some big Web names have been lined up in support – including Sir Tim Berners-Lee … Read more

In the clearest sign yet that the big guns are preparing to step up the battle for Web Office, Microsoft has said it is considering releasing a version of Microsoft Works (the poor cousin of Microsoft Office) as a web suite. The desktop version of Works retails for $50 and includes a calendar, word processor, … Read more

We’ve seen a lot of action in the ‘personalized start page’ space on the consumer side, but relatively little development in business web ‘start pages’. Salesforce.com has an interesting feature in its upcoming Winter ’07 release that may change that. Called the Business Web Desktop, it’s basically an Ajax-powered web homepage for Salesforce apps. The … Read more

The WSJ is reporting that US Social Networking site Facebook is in serious talks to sell itself to Yahoo, for an amount that may be as high as $1 billion. According to the WSJ, this is a return to the acquisition talks which Facebook has held over the past year with Yahoo – as well … Read more

In August AOL acquired online communications startup Userplane – which runs a suite of chat, IM, A/V Recorder, search and presence tools. AOL is in the midst of a big shift in businenss models – from closed ‘walled garden’, to a more open, web services-driven portal offering. For example AOL is to end its reliance … Read more

Written by Alex Iskold and edited by Richard MacManus. DEMO conference – the premier launchpad for new technologies – has unveiled its list of companies selected to launch at DEMOfall ’06. For the past sixteen years this event, produced by Chris Shipley, has attracted premier journalists, venture capitalists and corporate executives. The demo has been … Read more