Howdy. I’m new around here, as you may have heard. And as the site’s editor-in-chief, I’m delighted to join the community of readers, writers, thinkers, tinkerers, and creators who have flocked to ReadWrite over the past decade.
It’s a natural reflex to ask, “Who’s this new guy, and what’s he going to do with the place?” Since Richard MacManus founded the site 10 years ago, ReadWrite has been telling the story of the makers of the modern Web. The way I see it, my first job is to tell ReadWrite’s story, every day — its past, its present, and its glorious future.
Last year, ReadWrite dropped the “Web” from its name. That made perfect sense to me, because the two-way communication medium that MacManus wrote about has grown beyond the boundaries of the Web to take over not just the Internet but the physical world as well.
Every aspect of the world we inhabit is becoming readable and writable — not just as text, but as code as well. Ubiquitous connectivity and computing power is hitting an inflection point of ever more rapid change. Just as media has become a business driven by conversation, not broadcasting, we now can all be contributors to the open-source project called Earth.
We just need a map to where we’re going. And a guide. That’s ReadWrite.
So what’s coming next? There will be new technologies, and ReadWrite will be here to explain them and grapple with their implications. There are a host of hardcore technical resources out there. We don’t aim to become one of them. But we won’t be afraid to geek out when a story calls for it — and break things down so everyone can take part.
Mapping this newly programmable world, and everyone who’s helping to make it, is the chief project of ReadWrite, as it has been since its inception. That mission still guides us. Let’s read. Let’s write. And let’s execute.
Photo via Flickr user eridony, CC 2.0