Over the weekend, a debate raged across the tech blogosphere concerning the risks involved in developing for the iPhone platform.
What prompted the debate in the first place was Apple's decision to reject an app known as the Podcaster, which would have permitted you to listen to podcasts without first downloading them in iTunes. Because the app "duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes," says Apple, they decided to reject it from inclusion in the App store.
This week's prediction question focuses on the winner of TechCrunch50: Yammer. Yammer is a communications product that duplicates the functionality of Twitter, but with an enterprise twist. We certainly have our doubts about Yammer as an enterprise tool. However, we'd like your help in predicting the financial future of Yammer.
Will Yammer raise a round of funding in 2008 or 2009. If so, how much will they take? Head to the ReadWriteWeb Predictions site to cast your vote or try out our new Predictions widget at the end of this article.
If you're a user of the analytics service SiteMeter, you will now see a better interface when you check your site's statistics. The site redesign provides a host of new features for users that could cause users of Google Analytics to do a double-take. Here's a closer look at what users can expect from the upgrades SiteMeter has made.
UPDATE: Turns out the new design wasn't so great after all. SiteMeter has implemented an immediate rollback to the old design!
While social networks can sometimes overlap in features, there are a selection of features that you can only find on one network or the other. This has been the case for Facebook and Myspace users for years. However, Myspace is looking to play catch-up this week. The popular social network has launched a new video feature that Facebook members have had for months. Myspace users can now record a video directly from their webcam and upload it to their Myspace profile.
I love the way that our culture and technology shape social media, encouraging self-expression and transparency. But it's easy to forget that there are pretty good reasons why we don't, for example, yell about our sex lives at the top of our lungs at the bus stop. Or tweet about that giant city-levelling robot we're building in the basement. Or, ahem, twitter funerals!
Ever had something you reeeeeally wish hadn't shown up on your FriendFeed?
Spore, a Sim-like game about the evolution of creatures, was recently released as one of the most anticipated games of the year. Our initial impressions were high with the release of SporeCreator. However, Spore itself failed to meet our expectations. In the end, we found the game to be too simple for our tastes.
A major problem that plagued the release of Spore was the inclusion of a DRM system. This has caused multiple reviews of Spore to be disappointing for Electronic Arts (EA), the developing and publishing company of Spore. If EA hoped the problem would go away, it hasn't. Fans and "pirates" have taken things one step further to make Spore one of the most pirated games ever.
During this past week a strange event has put Twitter in a new light. Berny Morson, a Rocky Mountain news reporter, took reporting on Twitter to another level. He did not wait for the memorial service to publish the news about the tragic death of a 3-year-old boy. Instead, Morson "twittered" the funeral service this past Wednesday. All across the world bloggers and media outlets have been speaking up about the incident. Was Morson really in the wrong for twittering such an event?
Join us now for our weekly review of Web Technology news and reviews. This week we reported on the launch of Apple's iTunes 8, analyzed AOL's move to bring RSS and lifestreaming to the mainstream, and covered some of the best web apps to come out of DEMOfall08. On the trends side, we looked into what User Experience pros can teach us. Also we delved further into the impact of Google Chrome on the browser market. Listen to our podcast featuring a member of the Chrome team and other guests, and check out the results from our prediction question this week: which browsers will lose the most market share due to Chrome? Last but not least, we bring you the latest from our new Enterprise Channel.
I am an "enterprise guy". I edit the RWW Enterprise channel and I think that Enterprise 2.0 is a large wave of opportunity. So was I pleased to see an enterprise start-up win the Techcrunch 50 bake-off? Yes, but not this one. Surely not a 'Twitter for enterprise' product called Yammer?
In this post I outline the reasons why I do not consider Yammer to be a serious start-up.
According to a tip from one of our readers, Yahoo is planning to open up its services even wider and allow users to sign in without having to use a Yahoo ID. According to our tipster, Yahoo would allow you to log into Yahoo's services while using an email address from any other provider, similar to what Microsoft is doing with its Windows Live ID. If true, this would certainly be in line with some of the announcements that Yahoo made about it's Yahoo Open strategy.
