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
For me the Web 2.0 conference has been really exciting and the air has been full of energy. But I’m new in the Silicon Valley, so I’ve been curious to listen to what other conference attendees have been saying. A lot of them share my enthusiasm, but there’s also a fair amount of what could … Read more
Google just announced their new RSS Reader, called Google Reader. It’s browser-based (of course) and has similar look n’ feel to Gmail. Very Ajaxy. I’ll play with it some more and report back later. For now, here’s more info from SEW: “Google Reader is a browser-based application that works with virtually all popular browsers on … Read more
John: this idea of prosumer media, define more. prosumer media is big business Mark: started bloglines to scratch my own itch. other people must have this problem too, that was genesis. Rich: folks in newspaper companies surprisingly savvy about the Web. more and more content every day – our job direct people to that. Mena: … Read more
John: how you handling the success? Sergey: attributes success to luck. followed our hearts in terms of research areas. found they had something useful and impactful. early on talked about open sourcing, but eventually started the company. exciting and wild ride. starting to get used to it. John: brings up terry semel conversation, how he … Read more
Open source client platform for messaging, communications. Shows email interface with links embedded in each message – with web services calls to various apps/services. e.g. mouse over for Google map, appointment, events, fedex package updates. Lots of mash-ups. Impressive. APIs are open, can write mash-ups. Has the ajax magic going on. Fully indexed backend and … Read more
This is a Show Me of new technologies. Rolf Herken talking, founder of mental images. 3D visualization component software. mental ray photorealism – worked on The Matrix, Alexander, 2046. “Rendering the imagination visible”. Thinks there’s need for 3D on the Web. e.g. 3D online entertainment, e-commerce, product stuff, mobile. Very heavy data – gigabytes. Current … Read more
Shows stats – 36k feeds that really matter; 14k “really really matter”, 60 feeds that are Paris Hilton hot; 1 feed is da bomb – slashdot. [will update these stats later] Long tail of searches – 95%. eg head queries: hurricane rita, maps, song lyrics. Long tail of verticals (or categories). Also long tail of … Read more
Kim, CEO of SpikeSource: “the world has completely changed for building a software company.” Joe: talking about Jotspot, “DIY publishing” – wikis next step after blogs for web publishing. Jotspot heading towards “DIY apps”. Joe talking about Jotspot mistakes this year – not focusing on revenue. “Jotspot was in beta for way too long” –> … Read more
John starts by grilling Jonathan: “are you talking to Microsoft?” [crowd roars]. Jonathan replies that AOL is in transition from proprietary mindset/business model to more open model – like Web 2.0. John tries again: AOL is an important player in platform market, Microsoft wants to create a partnership with AOL. Jonathan: “we’re the largest swing … Read more
weblogsinc bought by AOL for between $20-35 million. SocialText (the wiki company) is returning to open source. PubSub has announced an open source structured blogging initiative. Flock, the social browser, is expanding their beta. I went along with Mike and Fred from TechCrunch to check out their office, which is literally in a garage in … Read more
Lots of data points. “Korea is goto place to figure out where the Internet is going” Innovation coming out of China – 5,6,7 yrs time we’re at “boom-let” stage now (after boom and bust) market valuations of top 5 companies huge (google, yahoo, ebay, yahoo japan, amazon), compared to 2000. entering 2 most profound cycles … Read more
Mary Meeker called where we’re at now a “boom-let”. We’ve gone from boom to bust to boom-let (presumably a precursor to the next boom). She thinks the first 10 years of Web were just the warm-up act for what will happen next. She’s particularly bullish on mobile technologies, which definitely haven’t matured yet. Mary mentioned … Read more
Discussion: Open vs. Closed Models Danny Rimer , Jeff Barr, Toni Schneider Tim: what do you actually own? Jeff from Amazon: we own customer db and namespace of products (Tim’s summary). Toni from Yahoo!: different answer for each product; but Y! owns “user’s trust”. Tim asks Toni whether Y! lets people export data? Toni: community … Read more
Very interesting John Battelle-hosted conversation with Terry Semel, Yahoo CEO, at the conference. The difference between outlook and attitude between Semel and Barry Diller is stark. On the one hand, Diller’s conversation yesterday was very much old-media, 20th century thinking. Semel on the other hand very much impressed me with his take on what is … Read more
I’m running out of battery time on my laptop, so I’ll have to wrap up coverage of the conference for now. It’s been a very busy day, running from one workshop to the next, packing in like nerd sardines into the workshop rooms, schmoozing, filling up the brain with knowledge. On a personal level, I … Read more