Here is a summary of the week’s Web Tech action on Read/WriteWeb. Note that you can
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Featured Posts
This week we took an in-depth look at the state of the Web Office
Suite market, concluding that Google Apps and Zoho were the most complete suite
offerings. Indeed, the day after our post Google announced it had acquired
Zenter, an online presentations company. So things are moving quickly in this space –
although as yet little sign of Microsoft entering the fray.
When it comes to browser-based web apps, a very important platform is the open source
browser Firefox. This week we launched a new series on Read/WriteWeb, entitled All You
Need To Know. These posts will be overviews of hot web tech topics, providing you
with (hopefully) all you need to know about them. Our first such article was on the topic
of Firefox
Add-ons.
We followed that up with e-learning
2.0: All You Need To Know. Josh Catone extended that theme with an excellent overview
of web apps for students. If you’re currently at school or college, check out Josh’s post
Web
2.0 Backpack: Web Apps for Students for some great suggestions!
In this age of the ‘read/write’ Web, where people contribute multimedia content as
well as consume it, it’s helpful to know which are the best tools to use. We published
two articles this week that will guide you. The first is Video
Editing 2.0: 8 Ways to Remix Online Videos, followed by Finding the Perfect
Shot: 5 Stock Photo Search Engines Reviewed.
Analysis Posts
Read/WriteWeb is the place to be if you want thoughtful analysis of the latest Web
technology trends. Check out these posts:
- Continuous
Partial Attention: Software & Solutions - Random
House – Widgets and Web Services Done Right - Google
the Vote: How Google is Changing the American Political Landscape - Facebook is
the Winner of MySpace-Yahoo! Talks
Digg Overtakes Facebook with 1400% Growth, 22.6 Million Uniques
Network Highlights
Read/WriteWeb has two excellent niche sister blogs, last100 and AltSearchEngines.
Steve O’Hear has a last100 Weekly
Wrapup, which has a summary of the week’s digital lifestyle action. Steve noted that
this week was dominated by more iPhone fever, with just over a week to go before the
device hits stores in the US. last100 also brought news of the
iPhone’s increase in battery life, a partnership between Apple and Google which
will see a version of YouTube coming to the
iPhone, and Opera announcing a beta
version of its Opera Mini mobile browser.
Lots of ‘last100 feet’ news this week too, kicking off with
Microsoft’s rebranding of its IPTV platform and BitTorrent, the company behind
the popular peer-to-peer file sharing technology,
announcing the availability of its Software Development Kit (SDK) – for consumer
electronics devices such as set-top-boxes and media extenders.
Also check out last100’s review of YouTube
Mobile, the newly released version of the video sharing site optimized for mobile
phones.
Over on AltSearchEngines, there was a Great Debate on Meta
Search and reviews of many new search engines. ASE is also the place to get all the latest news on
alternative search engines.
Events
This week the Supernova Conference was held in San Francisco. Sean Ammirati was on the
spot, reporting for Read/WriteWeb. Here are his posts:
- Google’s
Udi Manber – Search is a Hard Problem - Virtual Life
or Virtual Hype? - The
First Principle of Social Web Apps and its Implications - Supernova:
Connected Innovators
Startup Action
Here are the startups we profiled this week:
- VeohTV Launches –
Taking Direct Aim at Joost - Wikia:
Lightning Could Strike Twice For Wikipedia Founders - What
Will MyStrands Do With $25M?
Read/WriteWeb is about to ramp up our coverage of startups, focusing on web innovation
happening ‘on the edges’. So we’re looking for R/WW Writers to
help cover startups. Check out the post for more details.
Poll
Our
poll this week asked: Are you a member of Facebook? We got a good response and here
are the results:
***
Yes, but I only joined in May/June 2007 27% (200 votes)
Yes, I joined between Sept 2006 (when FB expanded registration) and April 2007 22%
(165 votes)
Yes, I joined Aug 2006 or before 26% (192 votes)
No, I’m not a member but I’ll join now 3% (23 votes)
No, I’m not a member and have no desire to be 22% (168 votes)
***
So 3/4 of respondents are members of Facebook, with most having joined up after Sept
2006 when Facebook expanded its registration. Overall, the most votes was for the ‘I only
joined in May/June 2007’ option, showing that Facebook has begun to tip in
popularity.
That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.