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
Sometimes we all get so wrapped up in the latest Web 2.0 calendar, rss reader or search product, that we forget that some things labeled ‘Web 2.0’ are actually doing social good in the world. This is the case with NetSquared, which is a non-profit organization that aims to “increase nonprofit effectiveness through the use … Read more
Rojo, the web-based RSS Aggregator I’ve used ever since I gave up hope of Bloglines ever stepping up its functionality, has just come out with some more enhancements. About a month ago, they re-designed their site and now they’ve done another overhaul and added 3 new features – one of which (relevance) I will drill … Read more
– Microsoft’s Remix Mix Contest Winners (more gadget goodness from MS… pic from Donovan West, one of the 3 winners) – Notes from Mashup Camp on mashup business models (I hadn’t seen these notes when I did my post on the same topic – makes a nice complimentary piece. Thanks John Musser for the link.) … Read more
by Ryan Stewart (Richard’s Note: I’m introducing guest bloggers to Read/WriteWeb, to write about topics that I think will be of interest to R/WW readers – but which I’m not an expert in myself. Ryan Stewart is the first of my guest bloggers, writing on the topic of Flash and ‘rich internet apps’. I’ll be … Read more
In this exclusive interview with ex-Excite founder and current JotSpot CEO Joe Kraus, I discuss with Joe the Web Office and his ‘Embrace and Extend’ theory. “Our goal wasn’t just to build Excel online. In fact I believe that Excel will be ‘Excel Online’. Microsoft isn’t dumb and they get this revolution about ‘software as … Read more
Developing a mashup can be a lot of fun and it’s usually low cost, because you’re using (semi) open tools and data. Forget fun though for a minute – is there a business in mashups? There are obvious benefits for the data providers, for example both Google and craigslist benefit from increased traffic to their … Read more
Niall Kennedy is on a roll, having this week published an informative series of posts on the RSS platform and the ‘state of the aggregator’: NewsGator API Google Reader platform Windows RSS Platform Feeds as a platform State of the aggregator I don’t really have anything to add, being busy in the middle of other … Read more
Is it just me, or does the list of winners announced for the 2006 Bloggies (the blogging oscars) bear a striking resemblance to the last 5-6 years? Slashdot, Boing Boing, Blogger, etc. Where are all the ‘2.0’ sites, like TechCrunch, Scripting News, Digg? Anyway, there was one shining light: Darren Rowse’s Problogger got an award … Read more
– The “Real” SXSW (it seems that live blogging is beside the point at an SXSW… I say that after fruitless searches tonight for the winners of the awards — Technorati and 9rules won apparently, but that’s all I know officer…) – Star of Startup.com Resurfaces (I enjoyed that movie… ex GovWorks Kaleil Isaza Tuzman … Read more
– Google/Writely points to online/offline future (Phil Sim is putting out some excellent analysis these days, especially on the topic of Web Office. In this post he convincingly makes the case for an online/offline amalgam Office.) – Directory of New Web Office Technology (Rod Boothby has started a fantastic resource here…) – Instructables (Interesting new … Read more
My NZ 2.0 buddy Ben Nolan is selling one of his web apps, bubbletwo, on eBay. There he is pictured on the left, pretending he’s zooming down the Silicon Valley highways in a Ferarri (which may yet happen if he sells his mapping startup zoomin.co.nz). Ben whipped up bubbletwo recently and he describes it as … Read more
I’ve long been suspicious of some of the stats that certain companies and bloggers push. We all know by now that industry stats tool alexa.com must be taken with a grain of salt, but until today I hadn’t realised the extent of how a site’s own measured traffic can be exaggerated. You see recently I’ve … Read more
Google has acquired what I chose as the ‘best of breed’ Web-based word processing app in my recent ZDNet post Web Office Suite [news via TechCrunch] The Writely blog is rightly chuffed: “…everyone told us it was crazy to try and give people a way to access their documents from anywhere — not to mention … Read more
Today I spoke to JotSpot co-founder and CEO Joe Kraus about their latest product release, pre-packaged “wiki applications”. We also discussed the Web Office, which I will post about separately on ZDNet. JotSpot’s latest product is a prebuilt wiki. Basically it’s a wiki with set templates and functionality, making it easy for people to use … Read more
Yahoo has announced four new APIs for its Developer Network: Photos, Calendar, MyWeb and Shopping. The Shopping 2.0 API is available now, while the Photos, Calendar and MyWeb read/write APIs will be available soon [updated – thanks Jeffrey]. While they’ll be free to use for non commercial purposes, Ash Patel (Yahoo chief product officer) tells … Read more