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
Todd Bishop from Seattle PI newspaper speculates whether Wellington filmmaker Peter Jackson was in Seattle and Microsoft last week… at the same time a certain Wellington blogger was in town. Pete and me (nb: pic of me by Alex Barnett) Todd wrote: “Filmmaker Peter Jackson, best known as the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy’s director, … Read more
I’m still in transit from my flight back from Microsoft Search Champs in Seattle. Due to foggy weather in my home city of Wellington, I’ve had cancelled and delayed flights to deal with. And to top it all off, the airline lost my luggage!! I’m currently in Auckland and will be off to Wellington within … Read more
Today I was at the Redmond office of Microsoft and it was an interesting day of discussions about… well I’m not allowed to say due to NDA. But most of the last hour of presentations was bloggable. TechCrunch has a good summary post, to which I’ll add a few more details. Live.com is preparing for … Read more
In a few hours I’ll be on a plane to Seattle, for the Microsoft Search Champs V4. My second trip to the US and my first to Seattle. It’ll be 15.5 hours of flying time from New Zealand (not including waiting around for connecting flights etc), but luckily for me I’m flying business class – … Read more
Aggregating and filtering the latest Web Tech and Media news, so you don’t have to! This is a 5 or 6 day a week feature and feel free to email me interesting links for inclusion: readwriteweb AT gmail.com. – PodTech coverage of the Sundance Film Festival (as usual, John Furrier is providing outstanding audio coverage … Read more
From the Martin Scorsese DVD bio about Bob Dylan, called No Direction Home. This shot is right at the end (from a 1966 concert) after audience members booed him for playing electric and one guy yelled out “Judas!”. Dedicated to all those Web developers who are building things out of the ordinary — and anyone … Read more
I’ve been following Umair Haque‘s fascinating articles on new media economics and ‘edge competencies’ – and I’ve noticed he prefers Google’s media strategy to Yahoo’s. I’ve been curious to understand why, because the common wisdom over the past year or so is that Yahoo has been making all the right moves in this new world … Read more
Aggregating and filtering the latest Web Tech and Media news, so you don’t have to! (p.s. thanks for the encouraging comments about this new daily feature – I’m trying out a new name…) – Out with old media; in with… what? (CNNMoney.com ponders who will be media gatekeeper in the 21st century. I dunno, the … Read more
Aggregating and filtering the latest Web Tech and Media news, so you don’t have to! (p.s. it’d be great to get some feedback on this new daily feature of mine – is the R/W Filter of any value to folks? How can I improve it? Thanks!) – Chinese internet police (Rebecca MacKinnon tells us about … Read more
On ZDNet I’ve written an article outlining some common elements of a modern website or app. A lot of the features and functionality of so-called Web 2.0 sites are now common elements in most current web apps and sites. It’s really gone beyond what was labelled ‘Web 2.0’ last year, because so many mainstream websites … Read more
Tushar Vyas, from mOne-Group M: “Traditionally, media enthralled people. Today it doesn’t happen – customers are multitasking and fragmented. Today’s customer wants to gain perspective, personalise the experience, get involved and participate. Digital allows this to happen.” Quoted by Dina Mehta at Digital Summit 2006 – Integrating Online into the Traditional Media Mix panel. Where … Read more
Aggregating and filtering the latest Web Tech and Media news, so you don’t have to! – Digital Summit 2006 (in Mumbai India. Dina Mehta is covering the event in her blog and says so far there’s been little talk of social software, but she has some good real-time notes with stats on the India Internet … Read more
Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig has a thought-provoking essay on FT.com about the perilous state of what he terms the Read-Write Internet: “We are well on our way to perfecting the “Read-Only” internet – that network in which every bit of culture can be bought in a single click, but bought with the rights to … Read more
A daily review of Web and Media news that crosses my path during the day. – comScore: Google Continues to Hold Top Position in Search Share Rankings (see also Shore analysis: “It also means that general aggregators will continue to position their search services increasingly for specific verticals”) – Josh Porter has a number 1 … Read more
On my ZDNet blog, I discuss social news site reddit.com with co-founder Alexis Ohanian and compare their collaborative filtering system with Digg‘s. Reddit may have a jump on Digg when it comes to avoiding groupthink and spam, via a user reputation system it calls ‘karma’. Check out the full story on ZDNet and tell me … Read more