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
sponsored by: This week: the future of Web sites in a world of RSS, highlights from ION RSS, new Web 2.0 developments, Techie post of the week. Future of Web sites Matt McAlister, VP & General Manager, Online for InfoWorld, wrote this week that RSS is disintermediating InfoWorld’s Web site. In other words, RSS is … Read more
Google has just released its beta book search product Google Print (hat tip Diablo). The new service lets people search within the text of a book. Interestingly, I note that Amazon has a search inside this book feature too (how long has that been live? first time I’ve seen it). Both Google and Amazon searches … Read more
I have a theory about ads in RSS. It’s based on my assumption that people won’t click on ads in feeds enough for publishers to make much money. So I think we may be looking at the whole ads in feeds issue the wrong way. Allow me to explain… When someone subscribes to your RSS … Read more
I’m on the look-out for more part-time writing, analysis or consulting work. I can’t say too much about it here, but if you have any work opportunities for me – I’m available and I’d love to hear from you. My skillset covers: – Web and technical writing (including software specs) – Social media analysis and … Read more
I was intrigued by this extract from the Headshift weblog: “The new Web 2.0 tools and services help create an ecosystem of connected people and information – as David Weinberger put it this week: The cure to information overload is more information, only it should become more ambient. We need to let people organise their … Read more
Rands in Repose has written the best post about web apps I’ve read this year. I’ll pick out the highlights here and finish with some thoughts on re-inventing the page metaphor. Also you may want to check out the Web Apps Compendium v1.0, a great attempt at listing out all the main web apps on … Read more
Jim Cuene gave an excellent presentation to the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association last week, on the subject of Web 2.0. The accompanying powerpoint presentation (3.2MB) is a nice overview of current Web 2.0 trends, delivered in a down-to-earth and businesslike way. I particularly liked Slide 3, a comparison between Web 1.0 and 2.0 entitled “Web … Read more
sponsored by: This week: Summary of Google Factory Tour, Recruitment 2.0, Rollups, Techie post of the week, Web 1.0 Summit. Google Factory Tour The Factory Tour and accompanying webcast received tons of coverage this week, so I won’t re-hash all the details. I’ll simply summarise the new things and add my comments. New? Google Personalized … Read more
Bloglines creator Mark Fletcher opines: “I have over 200 subscriptions in my Bloglines account […] There’s no way I could follow that many sites in My Yahoogle. Sometimes I’m asked if I consider My Yahoogle competition. There’s no way that they can compete without completely changing their interface.” The Big 3 and Bloglines He’s talking … Read more
I’ve been approved as one of the beta testers for Google’s new AdSense for RSS feeds. So I’m going to be running Google ads in my feed for a few weeks at least – purely for research purposes of course 😉 Now before you get all righteous on me, remember this is a test. If … Read more
Google has just announced a new My Yahoo-like portal page, which they are calling a Personalized Google Homepage. It will be one place for users to access their Google search, news, Gmail, weather, stocks, driving directions, movies – and more. In the Google ‘Factory Tour’ webcast, Product Manager Marissa Mayer said they’ll offer “Universal RSS … Read more
sponsored by: This week: Greasemonkey mayhem, Ajax fever, Web Design Minimalism mojo, Blogpoly Fun!, Yahoo Music Engine rave. Greasemonkey gives power to power users What is Greasemonkey? According to the homepage, it’s “a Firefox extension which lets you to add bits of DHTML (“user scripts”) to any web page to change its behavior.” In laymans … Read more
We’re nearly halfway through 2005 and there’s still no heavyweight competition for Bloglines in the Web-based RSS Aggregator stakes. And I’m not talking about an Aggregation service like MyYahoo and Firefox Live Bookmarks, which aggregate feeds either on a webpage (MyYahoo) or in the browser bar (Firefox Live Bookmarks). Although they are hefty competitors of … Read more
The BBC has launched a new beta site called BBC Backstage, which is their new developer network. They’ve put the call out for people to remix their content, using their APIs and content RSS feeds. Although over the years the BBC has been understandably “cautious” about “letting go of control of so much of our … Read more
MBAs got top billing in my latest Web 2.0 Weekly Wrap-Up – and there have been some interesting follow-ups. In the comments to yesterday’s post, Bud Gibson pointed to “The High Octane Blogging Bootcamp” that his company is doing for MBA students at the University of Michigan, starting this Saturday. More details here. Interestingly, they’re … Read more