In this edition of the Weekly Wrapup – our newsletter summarizing the top stories of the week – we analyze a new breed of content site that is rapidly gaining momentum, look into recent statistics showing that Gen Y is using Twitter more, compare five recommendation services for iPhone apps, review the new-look MSN, and more. We also check in on our two main channels: ReadWriteEnterprise (devoted to ‘enterprise 2.0’ trends and products) and ReadWriteStart (dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs).
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Web Trends
The Age of Mega Content Sites – Answers.com and Demand Media
Two companies that produce massive quantities of new content every day, Answers.com and Demand Media, are rapidly moving up the list of top U.S. web properties, as measured by comScore. Answers.com has risen from #26 to #13 in just two months, and Demand Media has risen from #24 to #15 in the same time period. Is the fact that these sites produce so much content, and are quickly gaining in popularity as a result, cause for concern about the future of the Web?
As Facebook Ages, Gen Y Turns to Twitter
Facebook is getting old. No, people aren’t getting tired of it, it’s actually getting old, as in its population is aging. In May of 2008, the median age for Facebook was 26. Today, it’s 33. So where are today’s college students hanging out now? Well, to some extent, they’re still on Facebook. Surprisingly though, they’re also headed to another network you may have heard of: Twitter.
Amazon Turns Twitter into a Marketplace – Are You Concerned?
This week, Amazon sent out emails to their Amazon Associates members touting the latest addition to the company’s affiliate program: a new feature called “Share with Twitter.” According to the email, participants can generate “tweetable” links to any Amazon product after first logging into their Associates account. After updating Twitter, any person who clicks through on the link and makes a purchase will earn the participant referral fees payable through the Associates program.
Thanks to Mozilla, Web Gets Less Ugly, Good Type Gets Machine Readable
Recently, a consortium of type designers and web designers have gathered around a new font format specification called Web Open Font Format (WOFF). The format would allow more typefaces to appear across the web and to be readable by both humans and search engines. With support from Mozilla announced with the release of Firefox 3.6, the question of web fonts might be satisfactorily resolved in the near future.
SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY
ReadWriteEnterprise
Our channel ReadWriteEnterprise, devoted to ‘enterprise 2.0’ and using social software inside organizations.
Enterprise 2.0: Declaring War Does Not Work
At the Enterprise 2.0 conference this week, Andrew McAfee made a few points about the approach to enterprise technology and how it might be changed. McAffee, of the Center for Digital Business, MIT Sloan School of Management, is considered the father of Enterprise 2.0. His views reflect how Enterprise 2.0 is evolving but still with a fair degree of resistance for its adoption.
ReadWriteStart
Our channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.
Enterprise 2.0 LaunchPad: Newbies Take the Stage
At the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, we witnessed some of the enterprise community’s brightest new stars. Enterprise 2.0 Launchpad offered early-stage companies a chance to shine. In a gong-show like presentation series, the four finalists took to the stage to battle it out for the title of best newcomer.
SEE MORE STARTUPS COVERAGE IN OUR READWRITESTART CHANNEL
Web Products
Discovering Great iPhone Apps: 5 Recommendation Services Compared
The iPhone App Store is a blessing and a curse. It’s one of the best things about the mobile platform, but it’s so popular that finding great new apps to download can be a real challenge. Where there’s a monetizable pain-point, services will flower! Enter a variety of new iPhone app recommendation services that aim to point you toward your next download and pocket the affiliate fees for paid apps.
Below we’ve posted a chart comparing the features of 5 new services for iPhone app discovery.
The New MSN: Will More White Space and Local News Make You Visit It?
Microsoft announced this week a radical redesign of its MSN homepage. Today’s MSN homepage for the US market is a busy mix of ads, hundreds of links and some customizable local news and weather widgets. The redesign, MSN’s first major redesign since 2004, puts a new emphasis on search, local news, video and integration with social networks. The new page features more white space, a tabbed design and a new MSN logo.
The Very Strange Story of the Startup That Says It Made $10m Before Launching
Ben Behrouzi came from the shadowy Lead Generation business, but some people in that field said he played too dirty. Now he’s got a real-time search engine that just came out of beta today, called Leapfish, and he says the company will already report $10 million in revenue this year despite having barely launched to the public. This is a strange story, so consider suspending your disbelief so you can see what Leapfish has to offer.
PayPal’s X: A Platform to Pick Your Pocket
After waiting for two months for PayPal to release its much-anticipated platform, the day finally arrived for PayPal X. ReadWriteWeb first covered the company’s announcement in late July and this week, at San Francisco’s Concourse Exhibition Center, developers and press people waited with baited breath to see what was earlier described as a “platform as ubiquitous as the electrical outlet.”
Ribbit Launches Google Voice Challenger
Ribbit announced this week the launch of Ribbit Mobile. Ribbit Mobile is a cloud-based VoIP telephony service that brings together web-based calling, smart call routing and voicemail transcriptions. It is hard to look at Ribbit Mobile without comparing it to Google Voice. Just like Google Voice, Ribbit gives users a new phone number or they can use call forwarding. Ribbit Mobile also has quite a few features that Google doesn’t offer, including the ability to make calls from within the browser.
SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY
That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.