ReadWriteWeb

Apps on the iPhone, there are so very many of them - how's a person to find the best ones? We look at a whole lot of them here at ReadWriteWeb and we'd like to share with you some of our favorites we've discovered in the month of February.

Some of us on the team are proud Android users but most of us are still using iPhones. I just discovered how incredibly effective the Genius recommendations on the phone can be, so I've been going nuts downloading new apps. Here are the ones our staff is most excited about this month.

Known by many as The Big Apple, and by some in the tech scene as Silicon Alley, New York City has been an international hub for media, art and business for decades. More recently New York has ebbed and flowed with the success and failures of the Internet startup culture, and is now well on its way to cementing its reputation alongside Silicon Valley as a driving global force in the industry.

Only four years after he quit his job and started The Sartorialist, fashion blogger Scott Schuman writes a monthly column for GQ, has been honored by Time Magazine, and more importantly, has gained the adoration and respect of millions of bleeding edge hipsters. Schuman's photography has inspired legions of salivating indie fashion fanatics, and many who've witnessed the mainstream outing of street fashion covet the simpler and less-ostentatious times. Yes folks, someone let the clowns on the bus and now wherever fashion goes, it looks like a drunk circus. Lookbook.nu is one site re-establishing exclusivity and celebrating fashion insiders.

The Internet economy has been built on the network effect (i.e. the effect that one user of a good or service has on the value of that product for other people). Investors and entrepreneurs have treated this like Moore's Law. But just as Moore's Law hits physical constraints, network effects have a limit in many types of online communities. Indeed, in some cases, a reverse network effect may exist: as new people join, others are motivated to leave. This dramatically affects the length of the competitive advantage enjoyed by these ventures. In this post, we'll look at which ventures suffer from reverse network effects, which don't, and which may suffer depending on the strategy they choose to adopt.

Wouldn't you love to have people in every corner of the globe talking about your website face to face and on their blogs? That's the enviable position that online crafts marketplace Etsy finds itself in according to survey results the company published today. Word of mouth and personal blogs are the primary way people around the world are finding out about the site and there's an active community of craft sellers on Etsy from every continent but Antarctica.

At a time when marketers are obsessed with getting traction on Facebook and are just beginning to take users outside the US seriously, Etsy's survey of its international members is fascinating - as is the company itself.

After World War 2, America built the infrastructure to deliver mass produced products, by mass transit for mass markets. We consumed along the arteries of this infrastructure, in supermarkets, fast food chains and airport malls. We have now passed the high water mark of this long distance, mass culture; the trend now is towards “re-localization”, where we are less dependent on the two dominant grids of the 20th Century - electric grid and interstate highways - as we rely increasingly on the digital grid/cloud.

Canadian startup Sayvee will "soon" launch a new service that allows artists to quickly and easily create their own websites to sell their art, build community, support positive political causes and more. That doesn't sound like a show stopper (unless you're an artist in need of a website) but the videos the company made to promote their service are awesome!

We wish everyone put this much care into promo videos - then our jobs watching promo videos would be even more fun. And the serious business of promoting important web startups would overcome one of its most challenging obstacles - getting people to listen to and understand your explanation of some crazy new idea. So check out the Sayvee video we like best below, stop by their site for more and sign up there for notification when the new service is available.

Credit crisis. Blah, blah. Cut costs. Blah, blah. Don't you just love it when you get an alarm call from your hotel at 9.15 when your meeting is at 9.00? At ReadWriteWeb we have been sounding alarms about the economy for a year (here, here, here and here...enough already), suggesting strategies to cope with the coming downturn.

But what about now? This is the time to be audacious. The world has changed, totally and irrevocably. Change is the entrepreneur's friend.

Credit crisis. Blah, blah. Cut costs. Blah, blah. Don't you just love it when you get an alarm call from your hotel at 9.15 when your meeting is at 9.00? At ReadWriteWeb we have been sounding alarms about the economy for a year (here, here, here and here...enough already), suggesting strategies to cope with the coming downturn.

But what about now? This is the time to be audacious. The world has changed, totally and irrevocably. Change is the entrepreneur's friend.

So eBay's in trouble, and whether or not the auction format was indeed a fad, you may feel the inclination to find a new place to sell your stuff. Online sellers are increasingly finding the web to be a more competitive market, and with management and rules changes at eBay, many are in search of a new home as well. Where are they going? And where can you go as a buyer to find alternatives to the online auction format that has been so dominant the past ten years? Below are six options.

After World War 2, America built the infrastructure to deliver mass produced products, by mass transit for mass markets. We consumed along the arteries of this infrastructure, in supermarkets, fast food chains and airport malls. We have now passed the high water mark of this long distance, mass culture; the trend now is towards “re-localization”, where we are less dependent on the two dominant grids of the 20th Century - electric grid and interstate highways - as we rely increasingly on the digital grid/cloud.

A lot of people scratched their heads when Etsy raised $27 million. What on earth? Handmade goods, that's about as low tech as you can get!

Then Umair Haque, a well respected blogger and strategist - albeit one who is known for being a bit “out there” - asked Is Etsy the next Google? Maybe Umair was just saying that this is big. One of his commenters pointed out: “not Google, but maybe the next eBay”.