Home Weekly Wrapup, 2-6 April 2007

Weekly Wrapup, 2-6 April 2007

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:


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Top Web News

The week started off with a flurry of April Fools jokes, blog style. Techcrunch got in a day early and fooled a lot of people (including me, initially). And as usual, Google had a couple of doozies – Gmail Paper & an In-Home Wireless Broadband Service.

When the serious news got underway for the week, EMI’s announcement of a DRM-free service got a lot of attention. In our post covering the news, I outlined what this means for the online music industry. Note that I made an update to the post a few days later. I discovered from a very reliable industry source that EMI had decided on, and made moves towards, removing DRM before Steve Jobs’ letter in February.

In other news this week:

Analysis Posts

As usual, we had a lot of thought-provoking web technology stories. Check it out…

Josh Catone was back in action this week with a detailed post comparing 10 Online TV Guide services

Alex Iskold wrote two beauties: The Future of RSS and CrazyEgg – Measuring Web Site Usability.

We had a very special guest blogger this week – Aydin Senkut, an ex-Google senior manager who managed their international expansion, including launching Google’s first 10 international sites. Aydin’s first post for Read/WriteWeb was entitled Outlook for Search in China and is a must-read for people interested in the international Web.

If enterprise web 2.0 is your game, you will want to check out John Milan’s write-up IT Opens Up and Lives On The Web. It’s based on a new report from the Leading Edge Forum, proposing a new course for Enterprise IT – abandon the notion of creating the perfect intranet and instead live on the web. Also see my post How Will Enterprises Deliver Next Generation Internet Applications?.

First-time R/WW author Bilal Hameed did a great job summarizing a new trend this week: The Sidebar Syndrome. He noted Google Talk’s sidebar add-on, plus this week’s news of Mozilla’s The Coop and del.icio.us’ “Social Bookmarking in the Sidebar” add-on.

Sean Ammirati picked up on an interesting story earlier this week – DoubleClick’s Advertising Exchange. In his analysis Sean noted that this could lead to a Google / Yahoo / Microsoft showdown.

Alt Search Engine Czar Charles Knight was in good form, releasing his latest mobile Web toolkit – The 85 Piece Mobile Search Tool Kit. Charles also had an interesting post looking at talking search engines.

Last but not least, part 2 in Can Erten’s mini-series on P2P on the Web was released – P2P: Potential Future Applications.

Startup Action

Here are the startups we profiled this week:

I’m somewhat biased (as I wrote this particular one), but I recommend you check out the Peepel post – it’s not every day a new Web Office suite contender appears! It’s a slick, if currently limited, online office suite.

Poll

Our poll this week asked: Will UI innovations really be competitive with Google?. It was based on Emre Sokullu and Charles Knight’s post on Quintura. Here are the results:

Yes, the likes of Quintura provide a viable alternative to Google for general search 17% (21 votes)

Yes, but it won’t be a single alt search engine – united they stand… 16% (19 votes)

No, the barrier to entry (for other startups and bigcos) with UI innovation is too low 31% (37 votes)

No, Google has it covered 36% (44 votes)

So it seems most people think not only that the barrier to UI innovation is too low, but that Google has it covered!

Web 2.0 Expo Giveaway

Next week I travel out to Silicon Valley for the Web 2.0 Expo. If you’re looking for a free ticket, well Read/WriteWeb just happens to be giving away 3 of them. To enter, simply go to this post: Web 2.0 Expo Giveaway. All you need to do is define Web 3.0 😉 Entries close next Tuesday morning PST.

That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

About ReadWrite’s Editorial Process

The ReadWrite Editorial policy involves closely monitoring the tech industry for major developments, new product launches, AI breakthroughs, video game releases and other newsworthy events. Editors assign relevant stories to staff writers or freelance contributors with expertise in each particular topic area. Before publication, articles go through a rigorous round of editing for accuracy, clarity, and to ensure adherence to ReadWrite's style guidelines.

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