The R/WW Weekly Wrapup is sponsored by:
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 (see the sidebar on our website).
Top Web News
It was a big news week for Google, which continues to set the pace in the Web world. Probably the biggest news came right at the end of the week, when Google officially announced it has acquired Feedburner. This is a marriage of Google’s analytical ability and advertising engine with Feedburner’s data and ability to reach a staggering number of RSS readers – and it seems like a match made in heaven.
This week Google also announced Google Gears, a browser plug-in that enables offline use of web apps. As we explained in our post, this is a huge boost to browsers like Firefox and Opera (two of the organizations that partnered with Google on this) – because it makes the browser an even more viable platform for web apps. In this age of RIAs, where web apps are increasingly being deployed outside the browser, Google Gears ensures that browsers stay at the forefront of web application development. See also Alex’s post, mentioned below, about RIAs and “what are they good for”.
We’re not done yet with the Google news wrap. Also Google announced plans for Adsense in Maps and they launched Street View Maps.
This week was a very busy one for acquisitions. Not just by Google, although as well as Feedburner they also acquired Panoramio, a website that links millions of photos with the exact geographical location where they were taken.
Probably the biggest acquisition story of the week was CBS buying Internet radio service Last.fm for $280m. Read/WriteWeb also explored how this sale affected the last.fm users.
In other M&A news, eBay confirmed the much-rumored StumbleUpon acquisition for $75 Million, and Fox Interactive Media officially announced it had acquired photo and video sharing sites Photobucket and Flektor (rumored to be $300 million and $15-20 million respectively).
Microsoft had some big news also, wowing techies with their new Microsoft Surface product – a 30 inch multi-touch display product for tables, allowing people to interact with information using touch, natural gestures and physical objects. The comments in Read/WriteWeb reflected a sense of awe at this new hardware/software development from Microsoft, so it seems like Microsoft hit a home run with this product.
Over on our network blog about the digital lifestyle, last100, Steve O’Hear covered all the news coming from the D Conference this week – including the historic discussion on-stage between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, the two iconic technologists of our era. In other last100 posts this week, Steve noted that YouTube has come to AppleTV and RealPlayer wants to be TiVo for the Web.
Analysis Posts
Alex Iskold was in good form this week, with two thought-provoking posts. First he outlined the evolution of communication, from email to Twitter and beyond. Alex then wrote about RIAs (rich internet apps), asking what good are the latest RIA frameworks (like Adobe’s Apollo, Microsoft’s Silverlight and even Google Gears)? Alex thinks that offline functionality is really their only compelling reason for being. This line of thought sparked a good debate in the comments, so check that out.
Also this week we had a special guest post by Dr. Riza C. Berkan, Founder & CEO, hakia.com. Dr Berkan’s post was entitled Semantic Search: An Antidote for Poor Relevancy and delves into the theory of next-generation search. Again, don’t miss the comments – where the discussion continues as I write this.
On a related theme, Emre Sokullu attended the 2007 Semantic Technology Conference and wrote up some of the highlights.
In another special guest post, Ross Dawson outlined the Top 60 Web 2.0 Applications in Australia – which showcases some outstanding web 2.0 companies from down under.
Finally, this week we analyzed whether Facebook’s platform spells trouble for MySpace widgets – an ongoing topic of contention.
Startup Action
Our Startup of the Week is Egnyte, a small company trying to develop Knowledge Management 2.0. While we noted in our post that the competition in Web Office is fierce, Egnyte has a unique solution for document collaboration that is worth checking out.
Here are some other startups we profiled this week:
- Streaming Internet TV Programming Guide Launches
- The 3D Maps Are Coming: EveryScape and Virtual Earth
- Startup Search Exposes the People Behind Web Startups
- Web 2.0 Hits The Home: MyDeco and MoveMe
- reCAPTCHA: Making Use of Spam Fighting Images
- Particls Launches Advanced Alerts Platform
- Userplane Shares the Wealth
- AfterVote To Launch New Social Features & Revenue Sharing
- Yumondo Brings “Urban Stylesharing” to Social Networking
Poll
Our poll this week was on the topic of the F.T.C. eyeing up Google’s DoubleClick acquisition for possible antitrust action. We asked whether Google deserved to be investigated for antitrust. The results were somewhat surprising:
—
Yes 55% (127 votes)
No 38% (89 votes)
I don’t know 7% (16 votes)
—
Over half of respondents think that Google should be investigated by the F.T.C. for possible monopoly practices. Yikes! Google just can’t keep out of the news it seems.
That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.
