Tech analyst, AI & the web
I founded the tech blog ReadWriteWeb in April 2003 and ran it until October 2012. During my time running the business, it was well known for its cutting edge content (“What’s next on the Web”) and its influential global audience. At its peak, RWW was ranked among the top ten blogs in the world by Technorati.
This category contains all of the articles I personally wrote for RWW, now archived on ricmac.org for easier browsing and search. If you’d like to explore the original context, you can also view a year-by-year archive with links to the Wayback Machine
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has posted his Thoughts on Music in the ‘Hot News’ section of the Apple website. He starts off by explaining the background to Apple’s DRM on iTunes: “Since Apple does not own or control any music itself, it must license the rights to distribute music from others, primarily the “big four” … Read more
The 30 Boxes blog celebrated today the first anniversary of their product launch. The online calendar space has been a tough one, ever since Google released its calendar app in April last year. But right from the start 30 Boxes has been recognized as an innovative app and not just your usual Outlook clone. 30 … Read more
I know as much about the SuperBowl as US readers know about cricket! Nevertheless I am aware that SuperBowl is the biggest sporting event in the US and advertising during the game is highly expensive – over $2M for a 30 second TV slot. An interesting angle for Web Tech fans is: how well did … Read more
These summary posts are designed to be a ‘quick fix’ of the top Web news, for those people who don’t have time to read the full articles but who want to stay informed. – Internet Boom in China Is Built on Virtual Fun; NY Times continues the western fascination with all things China. This article … Read more
A recent Techcrunch Forum thread asked what is the difference between Techcrunch, Mashable and Read/WriteWeb? I think each has a unique brand and we’re pretty complementary when it comes down to it. But the comments got me thinking about what type of content people expect from R/WW. So please help us out and tell us … Read more
Couple of bits of Google product news this weekend. Firstly, at last some tangible evidence of an online presentations app from Google, one of the missing pieces so far in the much-anticipated Google Office suite. The ‘Google Operating System’ blog dug into some file notes from Google that reveal the code-name of the tool is … Read more
It’s a bit late, sorry, but here is a summary of last week’s action on Read/WriteWeb…. Faking it Our poll last week was an eye-opener. We asked: in your current Web activities where an identity is required (i.e. you can’t be anonymous) do you ever fake all or part of your identity? In the end … Read more
Tonight there’s a crucial cricket game on in the international Tri-Series involving Australia (the world champions), New Zealand and England. My team, New Zealand, is playing Australia tonight at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Sadly I don’t currently have TV access to the sports channel that televises cricket games here in NZ, so I have to … Read more
Yahoo has rolled out a new portal-type service called OurCity, a beta product that aggregates content about cities from across the Yahoo network and Wikipedia. It’s rolled out to just 2 cities so far, Bangalore and Delhi. It is described on the TechMag blog (who brought this to my attention) as a “mashup of yahoo … Read more
I’m no stock market expert, but Adam Hewison from MarketClub has produced a 9-minute video that even I can follow. It uses stock chart theory to predict the fortunes of Google and Yahoo stocks this year – concluding that Yahoo will probably have the most percentage gain: The chart above is the Yahoo one, which … Read more
The Read/WriteWeb team is a little obsessed with next-generation search, even more so after Charles Knight’s illuminating post outlining 100 alternative search engines. Although Pixsta didn’t make that list (note that Charles is constantly updating the top 100), it is a “visual browse and search” engine that has a unique approach to search. It caught … Read more
A summary of the main Web Tech news today… – del.icio.us now has 1.5 million users, according to the official blog; Also talks about doing “more meaningful joint development work” with its parent company Yahoo, including re-doing the UI. – Amazon Q4 Announcements; sales up 34% including “for the first time, non-Media dollar growth [e.g. … Read more
The Daily Reel has a short interview with the creators of LonelyGirl15, the online video diary of a fake teen which became enormously popular on YouTube last year. The topic was what they think about the monetization of YouTube. If anyone would’ve benefited from a revenue share with YouTube in recent times, it’s these guys … Read more
– Information Super Traffic Jam; “A new assessment from Deloitte & Touche predicts that global traffic will exceed the Internet’s capacity as soon as this year. Why? The rapid growth in the number of global Internet users, combined with the rise of online video services and the lack of investment in new infrastructure.”; for an … Read more
Normally when we discuss mashups, we’re talking about browser-based mashups (and usually they involve Google Maps!). But Proto is a new application for building “desktop mashups”. The desktop/Web hybrid theme is one we’ve been exploring in recent months on Read/WriteWeb, so Proto is an interesting twist on this. The site offers a visual building environment, … Read more