2011

ReadWriteWeb is all about what’s next on the Web, so our team has been busy making their predictions for next year. Before I began writing my own, I took a look back at my predictions 12 months ago. Predictably, I had mixed success. But that’s a lot of the fun with predictions. Why not make … Read more

As part of our annual review of the Web, we single out a big Internet company that has impressed us the most over the calendar year. The first Best BigCo was chosen back in 2004, so this is the 8th year we’ve done this. Only four companies have won it up till now. Google has … Read more

This time last year I listed my favorite Web products of 2010. I enjoyed that process so much that I’m doing it again this year. These are products that I liked and used the most during 2011, but I hope my list is useful to others too. I wondered whether my top 10 products for … Read more

Every year since 2004, ReadWriteWeb has selected a best “little company.” These are small companies (loosely defined as less than 100 employees) that have had a big effect on the Web over the calendar year. Last year we chose Tumblr, which experienced extraordinary growth during 2010. In prior years we’ve given this honor to Aardvark … Read more

I’m thrilled to announce that ReadWriteWeb has been acquired by SAY Media, a digital publishing company headquartered in San Francisco. ReadWriteWeb will anchor SAY Media’s growing Technology channel, which reaches more than 75 million global consumers each month. ReadWriteWeb is going to get bigger and even better. Our plans include widening ReadWriteWeb’s editorial scope and … Read more

Every year there are at least a few surprising new Web products or developments. Things that you never saw coming, but which either radically change the Web landscape or become a delightful user experience. In rare cases, both. The iPhone announcement of January 2007 was one such case. An example of a surprising development which … Read more

Earlier this week, as part of our annual Year in Review series, we announced our Most Promising Company for 2012. It’s an honor bestowed on a startup that we think shows the most promise for the coming year. We chose appMobi this year because of its HTML-based mobile development platform, which is tapping into a … Read more

Since 2004, as part of our annual end of year review, it’s been a ReadWriteWeb tradition to select the startup that we think shows the most promise for the next calendar year. Back in 2004 it was Feedburner, which went on to be acquired by Google. Last year we chose location data provider SimpleGeo. It … Read more

In our Top Consumer Products of 2011 list, we selected the Chrome web browser as our number 1 pick. Its market share has grown over 2011 and it’s on track to surpass Firefox as the 2nd most popular browser on the desktop (exactly when it passes Firefox depends on whose statistics you read). Over 2011 … Read more

Every year at this time, ReadWriteWeb picks out the best of the Web over the past calendar year. Our annual Best Of series will be even bigger and better than ever in 2011! We have no less than ten themed ‘top 10’ lists coming your way over the following four weeks before Christmas, each prepared … Read more

This time last year I wrote a post outlining how online reading patterns had changed over 2010. The habits and products for reading on the Web have continued to evolve over 2011. This year, for example, Google+ arrived on the scene and changed the way many people find and discuss topical articles. We also saw … Read more

The next version of Microsoft’s still dominant PC operating system, Windows 8, “represents an incredible opportunity to bring the benefits of the personal cloud to billions of PC users.” That’s according to a blog post written by the Group Program Managers for SkyDrive, Microsoft’s consumer cloud product. When it was launched back in August 2007, … Read more

MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson used to be known as “MySpace Tom,” because newly created Myspace accounts automatically included him as a default friend. Nowadays, he may as well be known as “Klout Tom,” because of his usage of and influence on the leading social networks of this era: Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. Klout is a … Read more

So far in our series exploring cloud computing for consumers, we’ve looked at calendars and music. In the multi-device world we now live in, files from your computer are also increasingly being stored in the cloud. One of the leading Internet companies of this era is essentially a hard drive in the cloud. Dropbox, by … Read more