The Weekly Wrapups have been a feature of Read/WriteWeb since the beginning of January
2005 (when they were called Web 2.0 Weekly Wrapups). Nowadays the Wrapup is designed
for those of you who can’t keep up with a daily dose of RSS. Here then 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.
Top Web News
This week was dominated by iPhone Fever, which ended Friday
evening US time when they were finally released to the public (as you can see from the
photo on the left). The hype and anticipation around Apple’s launch of the iPhone – for
those non-geeks among you, a next generation mobile phone based on iPod and other
innovations – was incredible. Read/WriteWeb focused on the web applications being
developed for the iPhone. See our post iPhone Web
Development Frenzy for an overview of the web apps being readied for the iPhone. Also
we looked at Office Apps on
the iPhone, in particular the brewing competition between iPhone and the leading
corporate PIM/phone device, the Blackberry. We also reviewed
the first iPhone Development platform, created by Morfik.
Somewhat overshadowed by Apple was the Day
of Silence from Internet radio stations. last100
covered this too. On Tuesday thousands of US-based webcasters went silent for a day,
in a unified effort to draw attention to the Copyright Board’s pending 300%
Internet radio royalty hike. Notably absent: last.fm, which was recently acquired by
CBS.
There was plenty of other news this week:
- CNN.com To
Launch Web 2.0 Re-design This Weekend - LinkedIn
to Open Up – How It Can Take On Facebook
Google Opens Pocket to Gadget Developers- Microsoft
Announces Next Generation of Windows Live
Analysis Posts
This week we explored recent trends and activities around some of
the big companies: Yahoo, Facebook, Google, Microsoft. Here are those posts:
- Yahoo!
2.0: Its Reorganization and Future - Facebook
Acquisitions: Fad or Proof of Platform Success? - Google
vs. Microsoft: Just a ‘PR Stunt’ - Google’s
Marissa Mayer on The Future of Search
Google’s Sheryl Sandberg on Next-Generation Advertising
For the more developer-inclined among you, you will enjoy Alex Iskold’s proposal for
Standard
URLs, which Alex says will result in a Web with Less Search.
We also continued our popular Top Web Apps international
series, with a look at the Top Web Apps in
Canada. As you will see from that post, Canada is home to a lot of innovative web
services and the population there is very Internet-savvy.
Featured Posts
Josh Catone brought us 3 new market review posts:
- Who’s
Asking? A Roundup of Q&A Sites - Swap Meet
2.0: Selling Handmade Goods Online - Keeping Tabs
on Web 2.0
R/WW Network Blogs
Our Digital Lifestyle blog last100 tells us
about 3 features they wrote this week:
- Five
resources to create a Wii media center - the Neuros
OSD, a media center set-top-box based on open-source firmware
Vuze, an application for Mac or PC that allows users to search, browse, and download
‘near DVD’ and HD quality video content, using the peer-to-peer protocol,
BitTorrent.
Over on AltSearchEngines, there are some excellent
reviews of new search engines – including green ones,
Russian
ones, and
cooking search engines.
Startup Action
This week’s Startup of the Week is Zude, aStart
Page on Steroids that Phil Butler reviewed. We also reviewed, in depth, the following
new Web products Fairtilizer,
a new Online Music service (with an odd name!) and the much hyped Spock,
which Alex Iskold says is vertical search done right.
Poll
Our poll this week asked: will you buy
an iPhone; and if so – when?. We had a little under 1000 votes (as at press time) and
here are the results:
—
I’ll buy it as soon as it’s available in my country (June 29 for US) 19% (185
votes)
I’ve already got an iPhone! (e.g. you’re press, or won a prize, etc) 0% (3 votes)
I’ll wait a few months, then buy one 22% (214 votes)
I have no plans to buy one, at this stage 42% (406 votes)
I’ll never buy one! 17% (160 votes)
—
So 42% have no plans to buy one at this stage, while a further 17% say they’ll never
buy one. Somewhat surprising that nearly 60% of respondants won’t be buying an iPhone in
the near future, given that Read/WriteWeb has a very early adopter audience. Only 19%
said they’ll buy it immediately.
That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.
iPhone pic: lead.salad
