2008

It’s time to review the week that was on ReadWriteWeb. On the product side we looked at Adobe’s announcement of searchable Flash, checked in with online TV service Hulu, reviewed a couple of innovative new web apps (Gnip and Identi.ca) and reviewed Firefox’s recent world record. On the trends side, we analyzed Microsoft’s acquisition of … Read more

2008 has seen a big change in the way the blogging community communicates with each other. In a nutshell, discussions have become very fragmented. There are two main reasons for this: firstly Twitter and its 140 character soundbites has become very popular among bloggers, and secondly FriendFeed has tipped as the lifestreaming aggregator of choice … Read more

For years the big problem with Flash-based websites is that they could not be properly indexed by search engines. Flash websites have been favored by marketers and advertisers for a long time, because of the ability to create rich, interactive Web experiences. However for most other businesses, particularly those with a lot of information on … Read more

The weekend is a good chance to play around with web apps and social networks. With that in mind, on a rainy Sunday I found myself checking out Sarah Perez’s classic post from May: How to Make Facebook Useful Again. You may also want to read the comments for other useful suggestions. But if you … Read more

Here are some of the highlights from the week’s Web Tech action on ReadWriteWeb. On the product side we reported on Nokia’s buyout of the open source mobile OS Symbian, reviewed a “memory augmentation” service and a semantic search engine, and looked at what LinkedIn’s strategy tells us about the IPO market. On the trends … Read more

iYomu was a social network designed for adults, that launched in August 2007 with a splashy $1 million competition. Less than a year later, the company has closed its doors. Turns out adults didn’t want a separate social network after all, or at least not iYomu’s one. In this post we explore why this New … Read more

Sticking with the sportingtheme, and in deference to the European Championship currently in progress in Austria and Switzerland, our latest look at mainstream use of web 2.0 is a football (i.e. soccer) website. OleOle is a fully featured social media platform for football fans – and it has shown impressive growth since its launch on … Read more

Nokia isn’t finished with its acquisition spree just yet. Tonight the Finnish company announced a plan to acquire the 52 per cent of Symbian it doesn’t already own and make the platform open source. Nokia clearly aims to challenge Android, the open source mobile operating system of Google. Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo says that it … Read more

Last week we started a new series called Mainstream Web Watch, in which we’ll be exploring how the Social Web is infiltrating mainstream culture. We started out with NBA.com last week, to celebrate the end of the basketball season and the crowning of a new champion (Boston Celtics). In this post we look at another … Read more

We have a new daily writer coming on board ReadWriteWeb this Monday, Frederic Lardinois. Also I’d like to take this opportunity to formally welcome Corvida, who joined the team as a part-time writer in May. Frederic takes the position of News & Reviews Writer, recently advertised here. He will be a daily presence on RWW … Read more

Here are some of the highlights from the week’s Web Tech action on ReadWriteWeb. On the product side we explored Yahoo’s ongoing troubles, reported on Firefox 3’s record-setting week, covered a new “universal edit” wiki offering, and checked out some Mobile Web apps. On the trends side, we looked at what could disrupt Google search, … Read more

I’m sad to say that Josh Catone is leaving ReadWriteWeb today, to move on to a new job at a popular web development community website. Josh was the first daily writer (other than myself) to join ReadWriteWeb. He started with us in March 2007 and has been instrumental in helping ReadWriteWeb grow over the past … Read more

According to the Zuula blog, former search king pretender Accoona has finally given up on becoming a major search player. When Accoona was officially launched in December 2004, at a ceremony featuring Bill Clinton, Accoona claimed to have search technology that would be “more efficient than the likes of Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft’s MSN.” Accoona … Read more

Welcome to a new series on ReadWebWeb, which we’re calling ‘Mainstream Web Watch’. Over the coming weeks I will be exploring a whole range of websites for RWW – from sports sites, to grocery store sites, to government websites, to banking sites, and much more. We’re starting with a sports website that has probably peaked … Read more

DivShare, an online service for storing and sharing video, photos, music and documents, has had a security breach. The company announced on its blog tonight that “a malicious user” had accessed its database, “which included user e-mail addresses and other basic profile information.” The startup states that “no financial information has been accessed by any … Read more