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:
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Top Web News
The week started off with a flurry of April Fools jokes, blog style. Techcrunch got in a day early and fooled a lot of people (including me, initially). And as usual, Google had a couple of doozies – Gmail Paper & an In-Home Wireless Broadband Service.
When the serious news got underway for the week, EMI’s announcement of a DRM-free service got a lot of attention. In our post covering the news, I outlined what this means for the online music industry. Note that I made an update to the post a few days later. I discovered from a very reliable industry source that EMI had decided on, and made moves towards, removing DRM before Steve Jobs’ letter in February.
In other news this week:
- Google Voice Local Search Launched (in a busy week for Google, they also announced a TV Ads Trial and released MyMaps)
- Thunderbird 2.0 To Launch This Week (Mozilla also released The Coop, a social networking tool – see our post The Sidebar Syndrome)
Analysis Posts
As usual, we had a lot of thought-provoking web technology stories. Check it out…
Josh Catone was back in action this week with a detailed post comparing 10 Online TV Guide services.
Alex Iskold wrote two beauties: The Future of RSS and CrazyEgg – Measuring Web Site Usability.
We had a very special guest blogger this week – Aydin Senkut, an ex-Google senior manager who managed their international expansion, including launching Google’s first 10 international sites. Aydin’s first post for Read/WriteWeb was entitled Outlook for Search in China and is a must-read for people interested in the international Web.
If enterprise web 2.0 is your game, you will want to check out John Milan’s write-up IT Opens Up and Lives On The Web. It’s based on a new report from the Leading Edge Forum, proposing a new course for Enterprise IT – abandon the notion of creating the perfect intranet and instead live on the web. Also see my post How Will Enterprises Deliver Next Generation Internet Applications?.
First-time R/WW author Bilal Hameed did a great job summarizing a new trend this week: The Sidebar Syndrome. He noted Google Talk’s sidebar add-on, plus this week’s news of Mozilla’s The Coop and del.icio.us’ “Social Bookmarking in the Sidebar” add-on.
Sean Ammirati picked up on an interesting story earlier this week – DoubleClick’s Advertising Exchange. In his analysis Sean noted that this could lead to a Google / Yahoo / Microsoft showdown.
Alt Search Engine Czar Charles Knight was in good form, releasing his latest mobile Web toolkit – The 85 Piece Mobile Search Tool Kit. Charles also had an interesting post looking at talking search engines.
Last but not least, part 2 in Can Erten’s mini-series on P2P on the Web was released – P2P: Potential Future Applications.
Startup Action
Here are the startups we profiled this week:
- ThinkFree Launches Viewer Plugin For WordPress; Also Coming Soon – ThinkFree Docs (“Flickr for Office files”)
- Ozon.ru, Russia’s Amazon.com, Gets $18M Investment For Expansion
- Peepel: New Web Office Suite
- Compete Introduces Attention Statistics
- Morfik Patents AJAX Compiler – Playing Games With Google
- Quintura – Are UI Innovations Enough?
- HiPiHi – A Virtual World Born in China
I’m somewhat biased (as I wrote this particular one), but I recommend you check out the Peepel post – it’s not every day a new Web Office suite contender appears! It’s a slick, if currently limited, online office suite.
Poll
Our poll this week asked: Will UI innovations really be competitive with Google?. It was based on Emre Sokullu and Charles Knight’s post on Quintura. Here are the results:
Yes, the likes of Quintura provide a viable alternative to Google for general search 17% (21 votes)
Yes, but it won’t be a single alt search engine – united they stand… 16% (19 votes)
No, the barrier to entry (for other startups and bigcos) with UI innovation is too low 31% (37 votes)
No, Google has it covered 36% (44 votes)
So it seems most people think not only that the barrier to UI innovation is too low, but that Google has it covered!
Web 2.0 Expo Giveaway
Next week I travel out to Silicon Valley for the Web 2.0 Expo. If you’re looking for a free ticket, well Read/WriteWeb just happens to be giving away 3 of them. To enter, simply go to this post: Web 2.0 Expo Giveaway. All you need to do is define Web 3.0 😉 Entries close next Tuesday morning PST.
That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.
