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
P2P music service Grooveshark is at SXSW Music this week, promoting the upcoming release of an Analytics suite for music artists and labels. The company is also generously offering ReadWriteWeb readers $1000 worth of music vouchers (details below). We reviewed Grooveshark in August last year, when Josh Catone described it as “one part Last.fm, one … Read more
In yesterday’s post Why Apple Will Dominate Next Gen Computing, Alex Iskold wrote that Apple’s announcement of iPhone support for Microsoft Exchange “makes perfect sense” – as a competitive move against Blackberry and to position the iPhone as the default consumer / enterprise phone. However, how smart was this move by Microsoft? Specifically, Apple has … Read more
Due to the Ed traveling end of last week, we didn’t announce any Comment of the Day winners. To catch up, we’ve selected 3 random commenters to win: Frandall, YItna Firdyiwek, Jez. Congratulations to those 3 people, you’ve each won a $30 Amazon voucher – courtesy of our competition sponsors AdaptiveBlue and their Netflix Queue … Read more
Today I gave a presentation at the Media08 event in Sydney, entitled: What’s Next on the Web? Web Technology Trends for 2008 and Beyond. It’s an overview of some of the top trends we cover on ReadWriteWeb; such as Websites becoming web services, Semantic Apps, Open Data, Mobile Web, Recommendation Engines. The presentation is available … Read more
The comment of the day for yesterday was from our post Internet Explorer 8 Has Arrived. Sarah Perez noted that IE8 “showcases many new features and improvements, like Facebook and eBay integration, standards compliance, and the ability to work with AJAX web pages.” Sarah wrote that “this launch shows that Microsoft is not taking Firefox’s … Read more
Today’s winning comment comes from our feature-by-feature comparison of Office Live Workspace and Google Docs. In the post Sarah Perez concluded that “Google Docs, although limited in its capabilities, offers real-time collaboration”, while “Office Live Workspace […] may not have the collaboration features of Google Docs, but the workspaces feature is unique.” As usual when … Read more
We have two $30 Amazon vouchers to give away today – and both come from our current poll: Will Your Mom & Dad Ever Use Twitter? Our two winners are: Merredith and Nick Nichols, who both wrote about how their family members use Twitter. Merredith has a 16 year old daughter, who likes Twitter but … Read more
We’ve been very bullish on Twitter here at ReadWriteWeb. We named it our Best Web LittleCo of 2007, because it “has captured the imagination and become a new hybrid of chat, social networking and blogging.” Twitter also received the Best mobile start-up award at the Crunchies in January. And as RWW’s Josh Catone pointed out … Read more
Today we heard that P2P browser plug-in AllPeers has shut down, a blow to a market that seemed very promising back in 2006. Indeed, with AllPeer’s closure and the lack of progress of similar services such as Skyrider, we have to wonder about the viability of commercialising P2P as a service. Back in August 2006 … Read more
Online comics service Bitstrips will be one of the startups hoping to become SXSW Breakout App of 2008. In fact they responded to our Breakout Apps post by creating a special comic strip for ReadWriteWeb (see below). So what is Bitstrips? It’s an online comic strip that you can create and run as a series, … Read more
In our post SXSW Breakout App of 2008: What Will it Be?, Marshall Kirkpatrick looks at five possible contenders for SXSW breakout app. Last year it was Twitter, the year before Dodgeball. Commenter Rob nominatedsocialthing! as a contender: “If socialthing! is able to launch their iphone interface for SXSW, it could be the huge hit. … Read more
Here is a summary of the week’s Web Tech action on ReadWriteWeb. Highlights include analysis of Adobe AIR and its apps, recommendation engines, Google Sites, the ‘free’ theory of the Web, Twitter vs mainstream media, Etsy vs eBay, and much more. Don’t forget to click through to our website and leave a comment on our … Read more
In our post 35 Ways to Stream Your Life, Josh Catone listed 35 apps that aggregate all the little bits of your online life. Commenter matthewvb sees some irony in the current craze for lifestreaming, pointing out that “a little over a year ago (Sept 06) when Facebook launched their news feed feature […] it … Read more
In her post Google Sites the Next Sharepoint? Maybe Not…., Sarah Perez argues that Google’s strategy with Google Apps is to “subvert the IT department altogether and appeal directly to the worker.” But commenter benkepes said that IT is still key to Google Apps’ success: “any success Google has within an enterprise setting […] would … Read more
In our post Tim Berners-Lee Says the Time for the Semantic Web is Now, the Web’s inventor is quoted as saying that “people are realizing it’s time to just go do it.” But commenter Gregory isn’t getting as excited – he thinks that “we haven’t even gotten to first base”. And no we’re not talking … Read more