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
If Information Flow can be likened to a river, then lately I’ve only had time to occasionally splash water on my face as refreshment. Which is to say, I’ve been dipping in and out of the Information Flow that is my Bloglines account. This is the reason why the daily Web 2.0 News feature I … Read more
Today dawns in New Zealand as the 20th April 2005, which happens to be the 2nd birthday of Read/Write Web. Yes, two years ago today I posted my first blog post on R/WW (although I’d tinkered with blogging a year or so before that). Over the past 2 years blogging has brought me so much … Read more
sponsored by: This week: Aggregators trendy, Yahoo News vs Google News, Rupert Murdoch on the Mount, RSS Readers in bloom, new kinds of Kool-Aid. Aggregators Trending Upwards The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) and analyst firm Outsell released a report on the Information Industry this week. They estimate the industry is worth $250 billion. … Read more
I’ve been following what the 3 big Internet companies have been doing with RSS and I largely agree with Dave Winer’s recent assessment: “Yahoo is dashing in front, with Microsoft close behind. Why isn’t Google in the race?” Yahoo has been by far the most proactive company of the 3 this year. Microsoft has shown … Read more
A couple of weeks ago OJR reported that Yahoo News – “the second most trafficked News & Information site on the Web” – was in the process of a re-design. That design has now gone live in beta form, with the tagline “More News. More Relevant. More About You.” From a design pov: – They’ve … Read more
A daily shot of Web 2.0 news. Each item will have a main link, one or two lines of commentary from me, and views of the story from other bloggers (if available and if I have time). I’m still fiddling with the format… BBC unveils five-year mobile strategy NMA reports on the BBC’s five-year strategy … Read more
A daily shot of news from your favourite Web 2.0 blog. Each item has a main link, one or two lines of R/WW commentary, plus views of the story from other bloggers. Start-up building on top of Firefox ZDNet reports that a company called Round Two is building “a new crop of products and services … Read more
Here’s a new feature I’m trialing on Read/Write Web. It’ll be a daily shot of Web 2.0 news. Each item will have a main link, one or two lines of commentary from me, and views of the story from other bloggers (if I have time). It’ll take a while to settle into a decent format, … Read more
I’m pleased to announce the first Read/Write Web sponsor: ThePort Network. They will be sponsoring my Web 2.0 Weekly Wrap-Up for the next 3 months, which I’m thrilled about! ThePort Network has an exciting Web 2.0 product that is currently in the process of being launched. I’ve had a walk-through of it and I was … Read more
This week: non-blog uses for RSS (including Enterprise and Consumer), a new web-based delivery system for Associated Press, RSS advertising, Bigco action, Bloglines vs Technorati. RSS not only for blogs Right now there’s a lot of activity around utilising RSS outside blogging. I’ve said before that blogging is and always will be a minority activity, … Read more
This is my final post on the JupiterResearch report entitled RSS Readers: Addressing Market Opportunities with an Innovative News Medium (here are Part 1 and Part 2). I’ve enjoyed this chance to analyse the analysts and I’m keen to do it again. I wonder if other Analyst companies would be willing to do a similar … Read more
The Wikipedia page for Web 2.0 continues to evolve. It still doesn’t read well in places, but some parts hit the mark. For example this is a pretty good explanation of the transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0: “The original conception of the web (in this context, labeled Web 1.0) comprised static HTML pages … Read more
Last week I started my review of a JupiterResearch report entitled RSS Readers: Addressing Market Opportunities with an Innovative News Medium. I covered the first couple of pages of the report, in which JupiterResearch asked: What Is RSS and Where Is It Used? I was interested to see what Michael Gartenberg from JupiterResearch, the Lead … Read more
The second in my JupiterResearch blogging series is coming up later today, but I thought I’d mention my new sponsorship drive in the meantime. Basically I’ve set myself a goal of being self-employed in blogging-related activities by the end of this year. This will primarily be from writing (not just on R/WW), but also probably … Read more
Before I start: as this is a regular feature, I’m looking for a forward-thinking company to sponsor the Web 2.0 Weekly Wrap-Up. I get a lot of very positive feedback about the Wrap-Up and I know that a number of influential people read it. So if you’d like to sponsor the Weekly Wrap-Up with a … Read more