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
Every year in December Read/WriteWeb does a Best Web Companies round-up. This is the 4th time and, like last year, we’re splitting it over two posts. In this post we’ll announce the Best Web BigCo of 2007 and later in the week we’ll announce Best Web LittleCo and Most Promising Web Company or Innovator. These … Read more
In July 2006 Read/WriteWeb posted the first in what was to be a long and fruitful series on International web apps. The first post was on Germany, inspired at the time by The Museum of Modern Betas. This was when German social bookmarking site Mr Wong had a controversial cartoon logo! [they recently announced the … Read more
The Read/WriteWeb Job Board provides job opportunities for Web Technology and New Media professionals, at startups and tech firms all over the world. If you’re looking for the smartest and most innovative staff, people who are one step ahead of the rest, then you’ll find those people in the Read/WriteWeb community! Here are just a … Read more
In a comment on our recent post The Digg Effect, C. Weng pointed to an e-book he has written called The Web: Hidden Games. It is available for free on Lulu.com. Weng commented that his book reveals “how websites such as Digg, Youtube and Facebook can be viewed as games (even though they weren’t designed … Read more
Here is a summary of the week’s Web Tech action on Read/WriteWeb. For those of you reading this via our website, note that you can subscribe to the Weekly Wrapups, either via the special RSS feed or by email. Web News This week the Facebook Beacon saga came to an end, after the company added … Read more
The NY Times reports today about Coca-Cola’s new virtual world website. Coke has set up an island called CC Metro in the virtual world There.com (a similar site to SecondLife, but with more controls). NYT reports that at CC Metro, Coca-Cola customers can set up avatars, and “buy clothing and accessories for their avatars using … Read more
Yesterday I requested some comparative data from Compete about Web Office products, as a follow-up to our 2007 review of the Web Office space. Specifically I wanted to know how Google Docs & Spreadsheets compared to Zoho or ThinkFree’s word processing and spreadsheeting products. Also how Google Apps compared to Zoho, ThinkFree and others. The … Read more
MingleNow, the nightlife-focused social network that launched last October, is closing down on 7 January according to a statement on their blog. No reason was given, but Read/WriteWeb has learned that Yahoo may be behind the closure. Yahoo bought BlueLithium, an ad network, in September this year – and BlueLithium owns MingleNow.com. So our source … Read more
Email just received from a PR agency: “Dear Richard, Below, please find a press release from Hyster Company presenting the HysterÆ FortisÆ line of lift trucks. The Hyster Fortis product line represents a transformation in the way lift trucks are designed, built and acquired. Incorporating proven design processes and systems, each Fortis lift truck is … Read more
Yesterday we published a 2007 review of the Web Office market. In that post I concluded that Google Apps was the leader in this space – but this point was disputed in the comments by CentralDesktop’s Isaac Garcia, who wrote that “real traction in the business world is yet to be seen or proven for … Read more
Over the next few weeks we’ll be reviewing a number of Web product categories on Read/WriteWeb, summarizing what’s happened in 2007 – and what to look forward to in 2008. We’re starting with the Web Office, a market that underwent a lot of changes this year. Our definition of Web Office is: A Web Office … Read more
The open identity system OpenID 2.0 was launched today at the Internet Identity Workshop in Mountain View, after what Marshall Kirkpatrick recently described as “a long, long time of political infighting over either semi-relevant minutea or deal-breaking technical details.” The new version improves security and usability — and will hopefully be the catalyst for more … Read more
Today Technorati, one of the leading blog search engines along with Google Blog Search and Bloglines/Ask.com, launched a re-design. I chatted with new Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra today about it. He noted that the new design is about “going back to our roots” as a site for bloggers – but he also told me it’s … Read more
A couple of amazing stats have been released about mobile phone use. Firstly industry analyst Informa Telecoms & Media revealed recently that worldwide mobile penetration will hit 50 per cent – or around 3.3 billion subscriptions. Informa estimated that mobile networks covered 90 per cent of the global population by mid-2007. According to the Telecoms … Read more
Nominations are now open for the first annual Crunchies, the competition and award ceremony to recognize and celebrate the most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the year. The Crunchies is a collaboration project between GigaOm, Read/WriteWeb, VentureBeat and TechCrunch. It promises to be a great show! What I like about the Crunchies is … Read more