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
In this edition of the Weekly Wrapup – our newsletter summarizing the top stories of the week – we analyze and challenge Facebook’s sweeping new privacy policies, explore what would happen if RFID chips are integrated into the next generation iPhone, present our hands-on review of Google’s new smartphone the Nexus One, and more. And … Read more
Last week we analyzed how the Web is transforming personal finance. Today we’ll take a broader look at the world of online finance, from personal to small business tools. To get an understanding of the online finance space, we spoke to the founder and CEO of one of the most promising startups in online finance, … Read more
We began our Mobile Web Meets Internet of Things series yesterday with a look at barcode scanning. We wrote that smartphones are increasingly being deployed as readers for barcodes – in particular via apps available on iPhone and Android. These applications, such as RedLaser on iPhone and ShopSavvy on Android, allow you to scan a … Read more
Two of the biggest trends we tracked last year were Mobile Web and Internet of Things. In a new series on ReadWriteWeb, which we’re calling Mobile Web Meets Internet of Things, we’ll explore how these two important trends are converging and look at some cutting edge example products. We start with barcode scanning… Internet of … Read more
In this edition of the Weekly Wrapup – our newsletter summarizing the top stories of the week – we report on a new “superphone” launched by Google, take a look at how the Web is transforming personal finance, give you 5 reasons why RSS Readers still rock, get a first look at the new startup … Read more
The 2010 edition of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) gets into full swing today and already we’re seeing a big trend emerging: web applications being ported to consumer electronics, from the technology inside cars to Web-enabled TVs. Yesterday we noted that online music service Pandora will be made available in cars, courtesy of a new … Read more
Recently I wrote about the decline of RSS Readers as a way for people to keep up with news. I noted that while many people still use RSS Readers, usage has decreased due to the emergence of real-time and social flows of information via Twitter, Facebook and other such services. The post sparked a fascinating … Read more
The year is fast winding down and everyone is no doubt looking forward to a break over Christmas. If you want some reading and pondering material over the holidays, during December we’ve been publishing a series of annual review posts. We’ve picked our best products of the year in 10 categories, analyzed the top companies … Read more
Every year the ReadWriteWeb team tries its hand at predicting the future. Looking back at our 2009 predictions, we got some wrong (I predicted that Facebook would sign up to OpenSocial) but others turned out to be on the money. I correctly guessed that the usual suspects would remain unacquired in ’09 – Digg, Twitter, … Read more
Don’t worry, it’s not Twitter! For our Best LittleCo of 2009, we’ve chosen a small company whose product launched in 2009 and quickly became a leading example of one of the year’s big trends: the real-time web. Our pick for Most Promising is something that could change the way people search on the Web. Last … Read more
One of the interesting trends of 2009 has been the gradual decline of RSS Readers as a way for people to keep up with news and niche topics. Many of us still use them, but less than we used to. I for one still maintain a Google Reader account, however I don’t check it on … Read more
Spotted this evening on the U.S. government’s public data web site, Data.gov. A Republican programmer at captcha provider reCAPTCHA having some fun? Hat-tip ReadWriteWeb’s Marketing manager Elyssa Pallai, who stumbled upon this humor gem today. Originally published on ReadWriteWeb (archived copy)
In this special edition of the Weekly Wrapup, our weekly newsletter, we summarize our end-of-year series profiling the best web products of 2009. We also carried out a Reader Poll this week, asking our readers to select their favorite products of the year. We present the results of that poll here. Finally, this week we … Read more
This week we ran a reader poll, asking for your votes on the top Web products of the year. Thousands of you voted for up to 10 products, from a list of 100 selected by the ReadWriteWeb authors over December. The poll has now closed and we’re pleased to present the ReadWriteWeb community’s Top 10 … Read more
We’re down to the final day of voting for ReadWriteWeb’s reader-selected Top 10 Web Products of 2009. You can vote for up to 10 products, from a list of 100 selected by the ReadWriteWeb authors over December. Make your picks in the poll embedded below. You can cast up to 10 votes. If you don’t … Read more