2006

[Update: This is an April Fool’s Joke – and yes some people fell for it. I’m still in NZ :-)] I can’t take the isolation of running a successful web tech blog from New Zealand any longer. As of today, I’m writing my blog exclusively from Mike Arrington’s ranch house in Atherton. I flew in … Read more

My introductory post last week about Microcontent Design got such a good response that I need to pause and consider all the feedback, before I move onto Part 2. Basically what I call ‘microcontent design’ involves: …microchunking your content, taking advantage of open standards, employing microformats, letting users subscribe to all kinds of RSS feeds, … Read more

First I noticed Paolo’s post on 4 years blogging (via Dave), then Phil’s post. The bizarre part is I started blogging on the exact same day, 21 March 2002, as my fellow kiwi Phil Pearson – we even blogged about the same topic, RCS (Radio Community Server). I didn’t get to know Phil until a … Read more

– ‚ÄúWe need microformats‚Ä? – Bill Gates (Sez Marc: “Tim O‚ÄôReilly told me that he had to clue Bill in on microformats the night before.” — lucky Ryan King wasn’t around, otherwise Bill would’ve copped an earful…) – Google bullish on Atom, Microsoft bullish on RSS? (Robert Scoble links to my thread about Google’s Atom … Read more

The online classifieds edge player edgeio has released an update tonight, that points to the future of Structured Blogging. Now edgeio users don’t need to physically do tagging on their blogs, or in fact even be a blogger, in order to post a classifieds advert. How does that work, seeing as edgeio is positioning itself … Read more

In my latest ZDNet post, I review a recent JupiterResearch Concept Report entitled Understanding Google. Subtitle: Competing and Partnering with the Most Influential Company Online. It costs $750 to purchase this report, so I asked Jupiter’s Michael Gartenberg if I could get it for free and blog about it – as I did almost 1 … Read more

by Ajit Jaokar (Richard’s Note: Ajit is the second of my guest bloggers on Read/WriteWeb and he will be writing on Mobile Web 2.0 and digital convergence. Ajit runs a book publishing company called futuretext, which specializes in these topics. He also chairs Oxford university’s next generation mobile applications panel and is a member of … Read more

Web design firm 37Signals has kindly given me 5 copies of their 171-page PDF book, Getting Real, to give away. Retailing for $19 on the 37Signals website, the book is sub-titled ‘The smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web application’. Given that I named 37Signals my Best Web LittleCo of 2005, I think … Read more

This is the first post in a series in which I will explore microcontent design. “…content will be more important than its container in this next phase. That’s a big shift for old media to come to grips with. Killer apps, such as search, RSS and video-capture software such as Tivo — to name just … Read more

…you have lunch with The President, er I mean Bill Gates. Mike Arrington as snapped by Robert Scoble: Originally published on ReadWriteWeb (archived copy)

AOL has just released a new site called I Am Alpha, which is their version of Yahoo! Widgets or Microsoft Gadgets. Google has modules and all the smaller players have similar widget featuresets – PageFlakes calls them “flakes” and Goowy calls them minis. All of these things are basically little web apps that can be … Read more

Sometimes we all get so wrapped up in the latest Web 2.0 calendar, rss reader or search product, that we forget that some things labeled ‘Web 2.0’ are actually doing social good in the world. This is the case with NetSquared, which is a non-profit organization that aims to “increase nonprofit effectiveness through the use … Read more

Rojo, the web-based RSS Aggregator I’ve used ever since I gave up hope of Bloglines ever stepping up its functionality, has just come out with some more enhancements. About a month ago, they re-designed their site and now they’ve done another overhaul and added 3 new features – one of which (relevance) I will drill … Read more

– Microsoft’s Remix Mix Contest Winners (more gadget goodness from MS… pic from Donovan West, one of the 3 winners) – Notes from Mashup Camp on mashup business models (I hadn’t seen these notes when I did my post on the same topic – makes a nice complimentary piece. Thanks John Musser for the link.) … Read more

by Ryan Stewart (Richard’s Note: I’m introducing guest bloggers to Read/WriteWeb, to write about topics that I think will be of interest to R/WW readers – but which I’m not an expert in myself. Ryan Stewart is the first of my guest bloggers, writing on the topic of Flash and ‘rich internet apps’. I’ll be … Read more