In this edition of the Weekly Wrapup – our newsletter summarizing the top stories of the week – we analyze the continuing popularity of Apple’s App store, question the longevity of AIR apps, investigate the waves of changes happening in the book publishing industry, review one 19 year old’s innovative and successful news website, tell you about a new trend to track called ‘Cross Reality,’ report on the latest news about Microsoft’s Web-based office initiatives, and more. We also check in on our two new channels: ReadWriteEnterprise (devoted to ‘enterprise 2.0’ trends and products) and ReadWriteStart (dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs).
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Web Trends
Bits Of Destruction Hit the Book Publishing Business: Part 1
“Bits of destruction” is a phrase Fred Wilson uses to describe the destructive part of “creative destruction” brought on by digitization. We hear a lot about the destruction wrought on the newspaper business. A more interesting and nuanced wave is now hitting the book publishing business. Actually, it is three waves: the digitization of back catalogs, e-books, and print on demand.
Breaking News Online: How One 19-Year Old Is Shaking Up Online Media
Michael van Poppel used to be like a lot of young people, trawling the internet for interesting news about the world. Just like many others have considered doing, he created a place where he could post the most interesting news he finds, as fast as he can. Today he’s one of the most-watched movers and shakers in online news media – and he’s not yet twenty years old.
Are You Over AIR Applications?
When Adobe AIR was first released, we were in love. These glorious rich internet applications let us interact with web services outside our browser. More complex than simple desktop widgets, these programs delivered the web to us in beautiful little packages. But recently, we’ve begun to question AIR’s longevity. There’s no reason why these apps couldn’t just run in a browser instead…and that might even be a better place for them.
Cross Reality Will Change Your Life, But at What Cost to Your Privacy?
Yesterday we explored an emerging trend called “Cross Reality”, one term for when sensor networks meet online virtual worlds. As this trend becomes more common over the next few years (and it will, as both Web-connected sensors and virtual reality ramp up), what are the implications on how people use the Web? How will it change our interactions in both real and virtual life?
Facebook at 250 Million Users: Could it Be Too Big?
Facebook announced this week that it now has 250 million users, having added 50 million new users in just the past three months. If Facebook was a country it would now be the 4th most populous place on earth. But could Facebook be too big? It has centralized an incredible amount of power over a huge number of peoples’ lives; the texture of Facebook now shapes the pattern of a substantial portion of human communication around the world.
Teens Not Into Twitter, TV, Radio, or Newspapers, Reports Young Morgan Stanley Intern
Matthew Robson, a 15-year-old intern at analyst firm Morgan Stanley recently helped compile a report about teenage media habits. Robson’s report isn’t even based on any sort of statistical analysis, just good ol’ fashioned teenage honesty. He noted that teens aren’t into traditional media (think TV, radio, newspapers) and yet they’re eschewing some new media, too, including sites like Twitter.
SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY
A Word from Our Sponsors
We’d like to thank ReadWriteWeb’s sponsors, without whom we couldn’t bring you all these stories every week!
- Mashery is the leading provider of API management services.
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- Domain.ME, the official registry for all .ME Domains.
- SiSense, Analytics, Reports and Filters
- Mollom, stop comment spam and build your community.
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- hakia is a semantic search engine.
- Rackspace provides dedicated server hosting.
- Socialtext brings you 5 Best Practices for Enterprise Collaboration Success
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- Wix, stunning Flash Websites for Free
- MediaTemple provides hosting for RWW.
- SixApart provides our publishing software MT4.
ReadWriteEnterprise
Our channel devoted to ‘enterprise 2.0’ and using social software inside organizations. Sponsored by Socialtext.
The Four Essential Apps for Distributed Teams
Distributed teams. Virtual work. Placeless offices. Whatever you want to call them, groups who work from geographically separate locations are more common than ever. Despite how widespread this mode of coordinating work has become, there are those still wondering just what tools are absolutely crucial to making a distributed team work. Here’s a list of the four types of applications you’ll need, and some examples of the popular places to get them.
ReadWriteStart
Our channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.
A Startup Movie: Never Mind the Valley, Here’s Boulder
It’s no secret that we at ReadWriteWeb have a lot of love for startups that make their homes outside Silicon Valley and the Bay Area. We’ve decided to make a few videos spotlighting some unique, unexpected locations where startups thrive, where tech scenes are vibrant, where cooperation outstrips competition, and where creativity runs rampant. One of the first cities we’d like to introduce you to is home to between 150 and 170 startups as well as a thriving entrepreneurial and creative community. Welcome to Boulder, Colorado.
SEE MORE STARTUPS COVERAGE IN OUR READWRITESTART CHANNEL
Web Products
How Did it Get so Popular? Apple’s App Store Hits 1.5 Billion Downloads and 65,000 Apps
This week, Apple announced that iPhone and iPod touch users have now downloaded over 1.5 billion applications. According to Apple, there are now also over 100,000 developers in the iPhone Developer Program and over 65,000 apps in the store. Given this huge success of the App Store, it is worth thinking about the factors that contributed to the App Store’s success and what Apple could do to make the store even better.
See also: Using an Unlocked iPhone? Forget About Push-Enabled Apps
Siri: Virtual Personal Assistant Prepares For Debut
Siri, a “Virtual Personal Assistant” (VPA), has been getting a lot of hype over the past year. The product will launch end of summer U.S. time – starting out as an iPhone app, but later other platforms will be supported. The iPhone app will go into private beta July/August time period, then launch in Q4 2009 or Q1 2010. While Siri is still more promise than substance, we at least get to look at some real-life iPhone demos now.
Microsoft Launches Office Web Apps and Office 2010 in Limited Beta
This week at its Wordwide Partner Conference in New Orleans, Microsoft announced that the Microsoft Office suite has reached the ‘technical preview’ milestone. The interesting part of the announcement is that Microsoft is also releasing more details about the Office Web applications – which are lightweight, browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote (Microsoft’s note-taking tool).
Eighteen Streaming Music Resources
According to The Leading Question’s recent research report, as many as 65% of UK teens are streaming music on a monthly basis. Meanwhile, file-sharing has decreased significantly since the Digital Britain Report consultation to address illicit P2P file sharing. While music sharing sites have come and gone, here are some of the streaming sites that continue to thrive.
One Time in Bandcamp: Challenging MySpace Music
Hitwise recently reported that MySpace has declined as a traffic generator for entertainment and music sites. MySpace was previously the most significant contributor of traffic to entertainment – multimedia sites, at an estimated 35% of traffic to that category. However that percentage now hovers below 10%, thanks in part to new storefront-style tools like Bandcamp.
SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY
That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.
