2010

The leading social networking site in China, renren.com, started out as a blatant Facebook clone – but it now has tens of millions of users. Despite obvious similarities to Facebook, there is one significant difference from the U.S. in how Renren and other Chinese SNS are used. The bread and butter of these sites is … Read more

Consulting firm McKinsey has just released a report on the Internet of Things, one of ReadWriteWeb’s top 5 trends of last year. The report, available for free if you sign up as a member of McKinsey Quarterly, focuses on the “new sensor-driven business models” that Internet of Things brings. McKinsey sees two categories for emerging … Read more

Today ReadWriteWeb is announcing our second event, the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010. It will take place May 7, 2010, in Mountain View, California. The ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit will be an exploration of the latest Mobile development trends, both the technology and the emerging business applications. Registration is now open, at an early bird rate of … Read more

In the West, the concept of the ‘read/write Web’ is a relatively easy one to get behind. Everybody can contribute content to the Web (‘write’), as well as read it – it’s a very democratic notion. However in countries where democracy doesn’t prevail, the read/write Web is often subject to censorship rules. Indeed in December, … Read more

The big news of the week was Google’s efforts to remove censorship from its search results in China – read on for our coverage and analysis of this news. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet trends of 2010, including Real-Time Web, Mobile Web and Internet of Things. Note: We’ve refreshed the format … Read more

Is ‘checking in’ at places using location-based mobile apps like Foursquare and Brightkite resulting in us enjoying life a little less? Is there such a thing as too much data for a fun activity such as running? We address these and other questions in the final installment of our interview with Adam Greenfield, author of … Read more

SXSW Interactive is just around the corner, so it’s time to make your party plans for Austin, Texas! ReadWriteWeb’s SXSW party – in partnership with PBS, NPR, and others – is happening on Sunday, March 14, from 9pm at KLRU’s legendary Austin City Limits Studio. There will be shuttles to and from the Austin Hilton. … Read more

On January 12 Google claimed that hackers from China had attempted to break into its infrastructure, in order to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Because of those hacks, along with other malware attacks on Gmail accounts and ongoing concerns about the Chinese government limiting free speech on the Web, Google said … Read more

In part 1 of our interview with Adam Greenfield, author of Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing, we discussed the impact of the iPhone and other smartphones on the Internet of Things. In Part 2, we explore how the Apple iPad may also become a key device. Adam Greenfield thinks it may become the … Read more

Last week I had the privilege of meeting Adam Greenfield, author of Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing. It’s one of my favorite books about the Internet of Things and is still ahead of the curve, even though it was written in 2005 and published in 2006. Greenfield was in my city Wellington for … Read more

The big news of the week came out of the annual Mobile World Congress, from companies such as Adobe, Facebook, Google and Skype – read on for our extensive coverage and analysis. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet trends of 2010, including Real-Time Web, Mobile Web and Augmented Reality. You may’ve noticed … Read more

Yesterday I asked the question: does China really feel threatened by U.S. social media services such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube? As usual, I got an education in the comments to the post. While it’s true that the Chinese government blocks Twitter, Facebook and all of the main American social media sites, several commenters pointed … Read more

There’s no doubting the impact of social media on our day-to-day lives in 2010. In the western world, most big brands have Facebook and Twitter accounts nowadays, many TV journalists “write a blog” about their beat every day, and services like YouTube are widely consumed. However it’s the rise of social media as a tool … Read more

iPhone applications are no longer just toys for techies. There are now thousands of iPhone apps in the App Store designed for mainstream usage. Yesterday we looked at examples of health and fitness iPhone apps, today we check out what’s available for a current big sporting event: the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. There were … Read more