It’s time to review the week that was on ReadWriteWeb. It was a very busy week on the product side, and not surprisingly it was dominated by the release of Apple’s 3G iPhone and the accompanying App Store. Also this week Google launched a virtual world, Yahoo opened up its index and search engine to outside developers, and there was a (unconfirmed) rumor that Twitter had bought Summize. On the trends side: we analyzed the problem of spam in social networks, and investigated why ‘old school’ bloggers dominate in new apps like FriendFeed and Twitter.
Web Products
iPhone 3G Released Globally on 11 July
This was the week that Apple delivered its much anticipated 3G iPhone and second generation iPhone software, to over 20 countries around the world. The hype was partially overshadowed by the high pricing plans that international telcos charged. Nevertheless, it didn’t stop iPhone fanatics (including several of us here at ReadWriteWeb) from snapping up the new phone on its first day of sale.
Note: You can view an optimized version of ReadWriteWeb (as the above screenshot shows) on your iphone at: http://m.readwriteweb.com.
This week Apple also released a new version of iTunes, which includes the long-awaited App Store. On the day of the launch, there were 552 applications available in the store. More than 25% of the apps are available for free. Applications from the App Store will run on both the iPhone and iPhone touch after users upgrade to the latest firmware.
Lively: Google Launches Virtual World
While IBM and Linden Labs are cozying up to each other, Google released its own virtual world: Lively. Lively is available through a browser plugin for Firefox and Internet Explorer. It is Windows only for now. Lively does not feature one coherent world like Second Life but splits worlds up into different rooms. Lively was originally developed as a 20% project by Niniane Wang.
See also: After Lively, What’s Next for Google? and Linden Labs and IBM Break the Metaverse Barrier, Teleport Across Virtual Worlds
Search War: Yahoo! Opens Its Search Engine to Attack Google With An Army of Verticals
Yahoo! took another bold step this week: opening up its index and search engine to any outside developers who want to incorporate Yahoo! Search’s content and functionality into search engines on their own sites. The company that sees just over 20% of the searches performed each day believes that the new program, called BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service), could create a cadre of small search engines that in aggregate will outstrip their own market share and leave Google with less than 50% of the search market.
See also: MyYahoo 2.0 Goes Live for All; Developer Platform Coming Soon
Summize Likely Acquired by Twitter
Well placed rumor has it that microblogging service Twitter has acquired search engine Summize. Summize calls itself a tool for “conversation search,” and that’s a well deserved tagline. The service’s automatic translation tool uses Google Language tools to translate non-English Twitter messages into English with a single click. It’s access to the Twitter XMPP API enables it to offer on-screen notification of any new search results as they become available. The Summize search API has become the must-have Twitter search tool for all the best 3rd party Twitter clients and services.
See also: Get A Less Noisy FriendFeed With Moopz
Exclusive: First Look At Genome, A Next-Gen Social Networking Service
What are the number one problems facing today’s social networks? According to the young developer Vladislav Chernyshov they are: privacy issues, distraction and time-wasting, quantity over quality, ads, and lack of control over your identity. That’s why he, Dmitry Gorpinchenko, and Andrew Chernyh, all students at Novosibirsk State Technical University (NSTU) in Russia, have founded Genome, an upcoming next-generation social networking service which addresses the main problem of Web 2.0: the ever-increasing quantity of Web 2.0 resources and the lack of tools to manage them.
SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY
Web Trends
According to a new report, over the past 12 months more than four-fifths of social networking site users said that they had received unwanted friend requests, messages, or posts on their social or professional network profile. While friend requests on their own seem innocuous enough, they are often just the first step towards whatever the spammers’ intended malicious activity is, be it redirects to phishing or malware sites or even just unsolicited advertisements.
See also: Six Ways To Update Your Status
Priming the Pump: New Users, Meet the Old Winners
Social media, it’s all about the democratization of communication and empowering new voices – right? A few years into the new media revolution, reality is looking a little more complicated than that theory would suggest.
The wild garden of services growing from the read/write soil of the new web struggles each time a new app is launched and looks more like a ghost town than a place to enjoy the network effect of the crowd. How can new services ramp up social connections quickly? Recommending “friendship” with active early adopters is one strategy being explored by a number of sites. The end result can be a lopsided environment where a handful of winners dominate the collective mindshare – again.
SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY
Extra! RWW Live
This week we recorded the third episode of RWW Live. We discussed the following issues:
- Yahoo and the release of MyYahoo 2.0 and the related corporate issues (ie: who hasn’t been rumored to be acquiring Yahoo)
- The Powerset acquisition by Microsoft
- The rumor that Summize was acquired by Twitter
We plan to start promoting RWW Live more, including inviting people to participate live, very soon.
That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.
