68% of New Zealand's Internet traffic is to online auction site TradeMe, CEO Sam Morgan and Development Manager Rowan Simpson told me when I visited their Wellington office last Thursday. TradeMe is New Zealand's version of eBay, even down to the color scheme. But it's more than just an auction...
Today I interviewed Geoffrey Arone, the co-founder of social Web browser Flock.com. Flock recently released its official beta, which they call version 0.7. They're currently positioning their product as a mainstream browser which enables people to share and create online. Flock is specifically targeting people who use social networking media...
Last night I published the first part of my interview with two senior Sun Microsystems engineers, Tim Bray (Director of Web Technologies) and Radia Perlman (Distinguished Engineer). The interview was to celebrate the 15th birthday of the Web this week.Several commenters on the Slashdot thread about my post said they'd...
This has turned into a very enjoyable series, profiling web products being built all over the world! The latest list is for Poland, courtesy of Sebastian Kwiecien - who runs a blog at web20.pl. Sebastian sent me a very detailed list of Polish web apps, including information about an intriguing...
The media blitz from News Corp. executives on MySpace is increasing, with two excellent articles on The Hollywood Reporter and Washington Post.In The Hollywood Reporter, Fox Interactive Media president Ross Levinsohn says that social networking is just a platform for "peer recommendation" services:"What's next for FIM is leveraging MySpace's online...
Long-time readers of Read/WriteWeb may recall that I used to do a weekly summary of the top stories of the week, called the Web 2.0 Weekly Wrap-up. It ran all through 2005 and for a long time was the most popular feature on R/WW. I decided to put it to...
The NY Times reports that old media won out over new media when it came to World Cup coverage. The Times notes that television and newspapers benefited from the World Cup, but seems to overlook (or at least downplay) that Internet services did well too. While the Times article stated...
It's a shame to hear from Bob Wyman that PubSub is in trouble and in big danger of shutting its doors. Bob says that "internal political issues" are behind PubSub's demise and implies that this has deflected resources from actually improving the product. It's not my place to comment on...
The official FIFA World Cup website is run by and co-branded with Yahoo. A Washington Post story today highlights the interactive and multimedia features of the site - including blogs, chat, and three- to five-minute video highlights for all of the 64 games. Also in lieu of live webcasts (not...
Personalized Start Pages is a growing, but fiercely competitive, market. So what are they? Predominantly they're homepages for Web information, gadgets and widgets. The difference from old-style web portals are: the user can personalize them much more (with RSS, inline email, etc), the content is more interactive and potentially much...
The Microsoft VC Summit 2006 happened a week or two ago, but I've only just had a chance to review the posts that came out of it. If you're interested in where Microsoft is headed with its product range and general Web strategy, there are some nuggets in the coverage....
You know when Gartner and IBM pontificate on Web 2.0, that we've reached a point where the term has become generally acceptable - mainstream even. Well-known research firm Gartner has drunk the kool aid:"While Web 2.0 offers many new opportunities for companies to grow their business, few enterprises realize how...
Tim Bray in a post entitled What Matters: "Every day that goes by I believe more and more that the only important new thing is that the Net is read-write. Everything that matters follows from that."I came across this the same day that I noticed a newround of 'defining web...
I just noticed that MSN has a new project called MSN Originals, in which MSN will partner with content creators to deliver a "new generation of storytelling online". It's described as:"MSN Originals will expand the ways that top brands can tell their stories beyond standard media through in-content integration, and...
Late last week it was surprisingly revealed that Microsoft now aims to be a media company, rather than a software company. This was in the context of Microsoft's launch of its adCenter product, a direct competitor to Google's Adsense and Adwords. But there it was in black and white, in...
Mike Riversdale asked an interesting question in the comments of my previous post:"What, in your (and others) opinion, is the difference (if any) between the "online desktop" (A) (I'm thinking Netvibes and the like) and the "Personal Content Network" (B)."Actually I'm seeing a lot of crossover and cross-pollination in the...
In part 3 of my look at mc aggregators [here are parts 1 and 2], I get stuck into Suprglu. In this post I ask the question: how sticky is this site? But enough puns, let's get down to business. SuprGlu, a production of New York design studio Iridesco, is...
The big news of the night is Yahoo's release of a new technology portal, aimed squarely at non-geeks (see site tour). To make the point it's not for geeks, the site features 4 stereotypical "advisors" (aka bloggers): The Boomer, The Mom, The Working Guy, The Techie Diva.They are described as...
After my post that reviewed promising new email subscription services Zookoda and Yutter, I got an email from Feedburner telling me they had a new email service in the works. Tonight it was released - in fact you may have noticed it in my site menu earlier today. True to...
In Part 1 of this series I introduced the concept of Microcontent Design, followed by a case study of BBC's developer network backstage.bbc.co.uk in Part 2. Now let's look at what's being built by external parties, using the BBC Backstage ecosystem. Specifically this post is an in-depth and developer-focused look...
Explore the latest in tech with our Tech News. We cut through the noise for concise, relevant updates, keeping you informed about the rapidly evolving tech landscape with curated content that separates signal from noise.
Explore tech impact in In-Depth Stories. Narrative data journalism offers comprehensive analyses, revealing stories behind data. Understand industry trends for a deeper perspective on tech's intricate relationships with society.
Empower decisions with Expert Reviews, merging industry expertise and insightful analysis. Delve into tech intricacies, get the best deals, and stay ahead with our trustworthy guide to navigating the ever-changing tech market.