Today, Google, T-Mobile, and HTC came together to introduce the first phone running the Google mobile OS, Android, at a press conference held this morning in New York City. The overall message was one that focused on openness. But will the future of the mobile internet be driven by open platforms? That's what Google is betting on with Android, but more importantly, it's what T-Mobile is hoping will stop the flood of customers leaving their service for AT&T's iPhone. To entice customers away from the iPhone, we now have the G1, a slick alternative with a touchscreen and an app store of its own. The companies want you to believe the G1 is just as good, if not better, thanks to the real QWERTY keyboard and the open nature of the Google OS. Now that we have all the facts, are you convinced?
While it has great potential, the Semantic Web has failed to live up to its promises so far. Part of the problem, as Thomson Reuters sees it, is that developers will not add a lot of semantic features to their products until publishers start publishing more semantic data. Reuters' OpenCalais represents one way around this problem. But starting today, Reuters' newest project SemanticProxy will give developers an easier way to extract semantic data from any web site.
From Medialets, the company that was first to launch with an ad platform that was like "doubeclick for iPhone apps," has just announced a new version of their analytics tool for mobile apps. Previously available only to iPhone developers, the company is now bringing their analytics program to Android developers, too.
Now, no matter what next-gen platform you want to develop for, iPhone, Android, or "whatever comes next," says the company, you can stay on top of your business with one easy-to-use tool.
Last week, we covered how Zoho is defying conventional wisdom in the Web Office market. But is being unconventional all it takes for a bootstrapped start-up to take on both Microsoft and Google, in head to head evaluations by giant enterprises such as GE? Far from it. Whenever you see a surprising 'overnight sensation', you will usually find years of hard work and careful execution.
In Part 2 of this story, we reveal some of Zoho's cookbook.
This week we're looking at how religious organizations are using Web technology. Yesterday we reviewed LifeChurch.tv, an innovative Christian website. Today we check out what the Shalom Hartman Institute, from Jerusalem in Israel, is doing on the Web. Alan Abbey, the Website Manager of Shalom Hartman Institute, told us about his site in the comments to our previous post.
There's more user unrest in the community of popular social news site Digg, after the all-time number 3 ranked user Zaibatsu, a.k.a. Reg Saddler, was banned for alleged multiple violations of the Digg Terms of Use. That decision is "final and irreversible", according to an email Saddler got from Digg today. JD Rucker of Social News Watch interviewed Saddler to discuss the ban - we have the exclusive audio below.
ReadWriteWeb also contacted Digg to find out their side of the story - we have Digg's response below too.
We're live now in the latest episode of RWW Live, our podcast show. You can tune into the show, and interact with us via the chat, by clicking here. You can also use the Calliflower Facebook app to tune in and participate.
This week's topic is Data Portability, the ongoing campaign for open data across the Web. We have an amazing group of Data Portability leaders lined up for this call: Chris Saad (Co-founder, DataPortability.org), Daniela Barbosa (Chair, DataPortability.org), Eran Hammer-Lahav (Open Standards Evangelist, Yahoo), and Angus Logan (Technical Product Manager for Windows Live Platform, Microsoft).
YouTube is a great source of live music performances and other audio treasures. Music companies get upset that their tunes are used without permission in lip sync and other types of videos on the site. Where they see conflict, others see opportunity.
We've seen a number of new services lately that focus on the audio in YouTube videos, but the most enjoyable one so far is Mixtube - a mixtape maker for YouTube audio. It's based on the metaphor and interface of the now "sleeping" Muxtape.
Technorati says blogging is mainstream, we think the numbers indicate otherwise.
Blog search engine and ad network Technorati released its 5th annual State of the Blogosphere report and the numbers are quite interesting. Technorati says its findings indicate that blogging is now mainstream. We're not so sure. Although reading blogs is becoming increasingly mainstream, is writing them?
Google today announced embeddable previews for all books included in Google's Book Search. Developers can now make use of a set of APIs to embed these previews into any site. Google has already signed up a large number of bookstores, libraries, and social book sites for this new service. Amazon, of course, has included book previews on its own site since 2003, but thanks to this new feature of Google Books, any vendor can now add book previews to their sites for free.
