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
Google’s 2007 acquisition spree has continued, with the acquisition of GrandCentral – a service that lets users integrate all of their existing phone numbers and voice mailboxes into one account, which can be accessed from the web. Interestingly, Google says they bought GrandCentral because it fits well with their other services that “enhance the collaborative … Read more
Our sister site AltSearchEngines has just published their latest Top 100 Alt Search Engine list, which is eagarly anticipated every month. This month’s list has ‘gone global’ – from now on there will always be 10 slots reserved for International Alts. This acknowledges that there are many good search engines out there that do not … Read more
Alex Iskold has written a compelling post, arguing that iPhone is more than just a breakthrough mobile phone device. Alex says it’s a strategy that may expand Apple’s sphere of influence, from web browsing to social networking and even possibly search. So to complement Alex’s post, our poll this week asks: what has Steve Jobs … Read more
As we reported yesterday, CNN is this weekend re-launching its website as an enhanced multimedia site – packed with web 2.0 features such as recommendations and user generated content. The new site has just gone live – read our full review here. One noticeable thing about the new site, that we didn’t mention, is that … Read more
In the week building up to the release of the iPhone on Friday evening US, we’ve been exploring web apps for the iPhone. We also reviewed the first iPhone Development platform, created by Morfik. Now that the iPhone is in the hands of early US adopters (the Apple ones at least), we expect to see … Read more
The Weekly Wrapups have been a feature of Read/WriteWeb since the beginning of January 2005 (when they were called Web 2.0 Weekly Wrapups). Nowadays the Wrapup is designed for those of you who can’t keep up with a daily dose of RSS. Here then is a summary of the week’s Web Tech action on Read/WriteWeb. … Read more
Over the past year or so we’ve seen many mainstream publications ‘web 2.0-ize’ their web presence. BBC has been a leading force, while in March USA Today announced a re-design. Also we covered Martha Stewart 2.0 in April. Now it’s CNN’s turn. One of the leading mainstream news operations in the world, CNN is this … Read more
It’s possible the iPhone launch on Friday 29 June is more hype than substance – indeed the current poll we’re running on R/WW has only 20% of respondants interested in buying an iPhone as soon as it’s released! 41% have no plans to buy one and a further 18% said they’ll never buy one. The … Read more
Google has created a site called Google Gadget Ventures. Marissa Mayer will announce it this evening at the Searchonomics Conference in Santa Clara. It’s a pilot program, with the aim of “bootstrapping an economic ecosystem around gadgets” – according to a press email we received. The program has two separate monetary offers. The first is … Read more
With the excitement building about Apple’s iPhone, and lots of third party apps being developed for it, now is a good time to find out how many R/WW readers will be buying one – and if so, when? Please participate in our poll below: Originally published on ReadWriteWeb (archived copy)
As media and blog coverage of the iPhone release on Friday June 29 reaches boiling point, web app providers are frantically pumping out versions of their apps for the iPhone. CRM provider Etelos – which has already embraced other popular Web platforms like Google Apps, Netvibes, Pageflakes and Windows Live – announced on its blog … Read more
Just a quick update on my post last week, stating that Read/WriteWeb is looking for writers to do startup and web product reviews. The response has been overwhelming – over 100 people so far have emailed to say they’re interested. So it’s taking me longer to sift through the emails than I first thought (and … Read more
WebOS vendor Morfik has created a platform for developers to build applications for Apple’s iPhone, which is being released Friday night. Morfik claims this is the first development tool for the iPhone. Up till this point, no one had announced a development tool for the iPhone – although there have been suggestions by bloggers that … Read more
Tonight Microsoft is launching two more products into its suite of Windows Live branded consumer web apps – Windows Live Photo Gallery Beta and Windows Live Folders Beta. According to Microsoft, tonight also marks the beginning of the next stage of the Windows Live rollout. This “next generation” of Windows Live has the goal of … Read more
I know you don’t want to read another blog post about the People Ready controversy, which was ignited by Valleywag on Friday US and turned into an all-in brawl over the weekend. But I feel obligated to sum up my position on it, as one of the 6-7 bloggers at the center of the storm. … Read more