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
last100 reports that Joost, a hot Internet TV startup from the founders of Skype, may come out with a set-top-box (i.e. allowing Joost to connect to a TV) and a mobile version of their product. Right now Joost is a browser-based app. But it certainly makes sense to bring Joost more into the living room … Read more
Today I traveled to Sydney, Australia for a Web 2.0 forum. Most of the top Aussie web 2.0 startups were in attendance, as well as an interesting mix of Australian business people and executives in the audience. I got the sense that Australian big business is interested in utilizing new web technologies, and I made … Read more
Six Apart is announcing today the beta release of Movable Type 4, a much anticipated upgrade to a blog platform that has two distinct user bases nowadays – consumer base (like R/WW, which uses MT) and Enterprise. Of equal interest is that Six Apart is also announcing the Movable Type Open Source Project, a move … Read more
Ask.com has just announced the next stage in its evolution as a major search engine. It is called Ask3D, a name which had me expecting an amazing new leap in Web UI (3D search!!) and then got me reminiscing about the time I saw that Jaws sequel in 3D… Turns out Ask3D isn’t quite as … Read more
I’m pleased to announce the second network blog under the Read/WriteWeb umbrella, AltSearchEngines. This blog will be focused on search engines, in particular the hundreds of ‘alternative’ search engines that compete with the big guns like Google and Yahoo. AltSearchEngines is edited by Charles Knight, author of the very popular Top 100 Alt Search Engines … Read more
I’ve had a thing for WebOS products for quite some time. I first reviewed one of their number, EyeOS, in August 2006. Recent WebOS reviews I’ve done on Read/WriteWeb include DesktopOnDemand and Blake Ross of Firefox fame’s Parakey. Also Emre Sokullu wrote a popular article on the still mythical GoogleOS, last November. eyeOS hails from … Read more
The use cases for Twitter, the IM/blogging hybrid that has taken the blogger world by storm, continues to grow. Tonight I spotted Amazon.com using Twitter to announce Gold Box deals. I found out about this via (what else) Twitter, when bloggersblog pinged it – noting that Amazon has “a long way to go to catch … Read more
Thank you to our sponsors, for supporting Read/WriteWeb’s mission to provide quality and original news and analysis about Web Technology. We make it a point to always write thoughtful posts – you may not agree with all of what we write, but you have to admit we are contributing something unique to the blogosphere. I … Read more
The R/WW Weekly Wrapup is sponsored by: Here is a summary of the week’s Web Tech action on Read/WriteWeb. Note that you can subscribe to the weekly wrapups, either via the special RSS feed or by email (see the sidebar on our website). Top Web News It was a big news week for Google, which … Read more
last100 has an excellent post analyzing comments about the upcoming AppleTV, made by Steve Jobs at yesterday’s D5 event. ‘We’re in two businesses today, we’ll very shortly be in three, and a hobby’?, Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs told Walt Mossberg in an on-stage interview at yesterday’s D: conference. The first two are computers and digital … Read more
Earlier this week we reported that the F.T.C. is looking at a possible antitrust investigation against Google, over its DoubleClick acquisition. Our poll this week asks: Should Google be investigated for antitrust? I’m somewhat amazed to find that nearly half of respondants so far think that YES, Google should be investigated for anti-trust. At this … Read more
Google has released a browser plug-in called Gears, which enables people to use web apps while offline. The technology behind the plug-in gives developers the ability to implement offline functionality into their browser-based web apps. Gears is an open source collaboration between Google, Adobe, Mozilla, and Opera. We’ve written many times before about the need … Read more
Update: Google has acquired Panoramio, a website that links millions of photos with the exact geographical location where they were taken. It’s all happening today! (original post) A lot of acquisition news has been released today, with the common theme that Big Media is buying successful web 2.0 startups. First it was CBS acquiring last.fm … Read more
Microsoft just announced a very cool new multi-touch computing product, called Surface. At first the rumors were this would be an iPhone competitor, but it’s clear now that it’s much larger (30-inch display!) and more of an environmental computer device. Using the product, people can interact with information using touch, natural gestures and physical objects. … Read more
Update to Microsoft story: news has just come out about the product described below, officially named Surface. It’s a lot bigger than the iPhone, but uses similar multi-touch technology. Here is the press release and here is our write-up. (original story) Our sister site last100 reports on the imminent unveiling of Microsoft’s multi-touch technology — … Read more