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
Amazon has just released a new Wikipedia clone, called Amapedia. It’s described as “a community for sharing information about the products you like the most.” So far Amapedia has had no promotion from Amazon, but it was discovered today by Rogers Cadenhead. Anyone with an Amazon.Com account can edit the site. Regarding the name, Amapedia … Read more
The latest Read/WriteWeb poll has highlighted some interesting trends. We asked what type of RSS Reader do you use the most? Here are the results so far, from nearly 900 respondents: 1. Web-based (e.g. Bloglines, Google Reader, Rojo) 55% (495 votes) 2. Desktop (e.g. FeedDemon, NetNewsWire) 18% (160 votes) 3. Start page (e.g. Netvibes, Pageflakes) … Read more
sphereit start Compete (a R/WW sponsor) has released data that shows MySpace and Yahoo are the top websites in terms of average time spent on them by users. The data is for US users only. Here are the figures from Compete, expressed as % of total time spent online in the US in Dec 06: … Read more
Red Swoosh is a P2P desktop client which appears to compete against the BitTorrent client. It’s a very promising technology in a Web world increasingly filled with video and other large multimedia files. Red Swoosh is a desktop client (Windows only) that enables users to download and stream files from each other, rather than from … Read more
Disclosure: Zoho is a sponsor of R/WW. Late last week, Web Office provider Zoho and online storage company Omnidrive announced a partnership, allowing users to edit a Zoho office document and save directly into Omnidrive. Also, both Omnidrive and Zoho released APIs. The news has already been covered in-depth elsewhere – e.g. TechCrunch and Zoli’s … Read more
IBM has just released a new product called Many Eyes, a “shared visualization and discovery” service. We talked about the usefulness or otherwise of 3D graphics on the Web earlier this week (and most people agree that 3D is becoming increasingly relevant), so this is I suppose another rich way to present data and content … Read more
Written by Gang Lu and edited by Richard MacManus There are many so-called Chinese YouTubes fighting it out on the Chinese web2.0 battleground, but one that caught our attention is Mojiti.com, launched in November 2006. What makes Mojiti special in this market is that it offers users a fresh experience: videos are not just available … Read more
Nevermind Mobile Web 2.0, you’ve got to admire Irishman Pat Phelan’s 2 recent mobile services: AllFreeCalls.net and now Roam4Free. The former is a complicated workaround that makes it possible for USA residents to call an Iowa-based phone number and from there make free international calls. Unfortunately I can’t take advantage of this, as I’m not … Read more
In Chennai, India, a DEMO-like event called Proto.in was held this week to showcase 30 new technology companies. As of now there is no information on the official blog about the presenting companies, but organizer Vijay Anand sent me a list of the companies along with descriptions. The event wasn’t just for web 2.0 type … Read more
Music discovery and social networking site MyStrands has undergone a re-vamp. It includes better integration between the online, mobile and physical worlds; excellent new mobile features including a mobile Web portal and personalized radio station; new navigation on the site; and a personal version of partyStrands, their service for party organizers, bars, clubs and DJs. … Read more
We’re piloting a new feature on Read/WriteWeb, called Point/Counterpoint. It’s where two authors (John Milan and Alex Iskold in this case) argue two sides of an intriguing question. We’d also like you, the reader, to contribute YOUR thoughts in the comments section. Who do you agree with the most – John or Alex – and … Read more
The big news today is that IBM has released an enterprise social networking suite, called Lotus Connections. The NY Times explains: “Lotus Connections has five components — activities, communities, dogear (a bookmarking system), profiles and blogs — aimed at helping experts within a company connect and build new relationships based on their individual needs.” The … Read more
3D interfaces have been around since the Web began – and more than one dot com fell by the wayside partly because of an over-reaching 3D interface (cough, boo.com). Indeed as we noted in December, virtual shopping malls are still alive and kicking. But is 3D of any use on the Web, or is it … Read more
A quick thank you to Read/WriteWeb’s excellent sponsors, for supporting quality content on Web Technology. Thanks also to our fast growing community of readers – your comments and encouragement spur us along every day. If you’re a fan of R/WW, you may like to sign up to our MyBlogLog community too. R/WW’s current sponsors are: … Read more
Another startup has bitten the dust, RSS company Syndicate IQ has “ceased operations” according to a notice on its homepage. Syndicate IQ was a company that provided feed management, statistics and adverts – similar to Feedburner. Syndicate IQ launched in December 2004 and its goal was to “manage, measure, and monetize syndicated content”, according to … Read more