ReadWriteWeb

A site called "Web Applications" (beta) is the newest addition to the Stack Exchange network, a service that powers popular tech Q&A sites including StackOverflow, ServerFault, SuperUser.com and StackApps. Like the others before it, the new site uses the same back-end framework to create a simple user interface where people can post questions and answers, this time about Web applications. For example: How do you export mail from Gmail? Or delete your Facebook account? Or send giant files via email?

But "Web Applications" is just the first of many new StackOverflow-like sites on the horizon, and surprisingly, the next sites to launch may not be tech-focused at all.

Sensors that smell help save lives everyday. From cars that won't start because court-ordered breathalyzers smell alcohol in the operator's blood stream, to bomb-sniffing machines at the airport, to complex medical tests that analyze your breath - we are designing machines that smell to make the world a safer place.

Smell sensors are essential to the future of the Internet of Things. From RFID stickers capable of smelling food through the package and updating the food's status to the Web, to our next phone being a "smell phone", engineers are finding innovative ways to help protect our families from being exposed to toxic hazards.

Friday is the last day of New York Entrepreneur Week which, upon its completion, will have featured over 100 speakers from across the globe. Since it kicked off, interesting stories have been surfacing around the event. A guest post on the event's official blog by Janine de Nysschen, a business consultant and endorser of change dynamics, asks why women play a very small role in startups and venture capital. As her passion might indicate, she feels this trend is changing.

While the government in Washington slowly inches their way toward a bill to create jobs for Americans, tech corporations and venture capital firms across the nation are teaming up in a private sector effort to create more companies and more jobs in the tech space. Led by Intel, the Invest in America Alliance, consisting of 17 companies and 24 VC firms, announced Tuesday that it has pledged to provide $3.5 billion in tech startup funding and jobs for over 10,000 new grads in the next two years.

If an agency has ever pitched you on outreach to women's blogs and they don't mention the BlogHer network, there's something wrong with them. BlogHer and its 2,500 contributing blog affiliates are celebrating the network's 5 year anniversary with the combined traffic of 21 million unique visitors per month and some huge lessons learned along the way. ReadWriteWeb spoke to co-founder Elisa Camahort Page to find out what it's like to run a women's network in a man's world.

If you're a mobile app developer, one of your biggest concerns is getting noticed. Companies like Smule and Tapulous already have recognized brands; however, for the independent app designer, the promotion process requires a fair amount of strategy. One proven method of increasing downloads is becoming listed as one of the App Store's top selling services. We spoke to faberNovel's Baptiste Benezet to find out how indie developers can hack the App Store ranking algorithm.

A few days ago Ryan Waggoner launched PRManna - a site for startup companies to offer themselves as news sources to the tech blogging community. Similar to Peter Shankman's Help a Reporter Out (HARO) the site allows journalists to submit requests with the idea that community members answer tech-related questions for articles. In the past we've listed the ideal components of a communication pipeline. We spoke to Waggoner to find out how he's trying to address the needs of both bloggers and entrepreneurs.

We all know that young folks use the social Web for personal purposes, from keeping tabs on family members to sharing party pics with friends. And yes, as we reported more than a year ago, they even use the social Web - gasp! - while at their places of employment. But they're also using more tech for work-related tasks, including interacting with customers and vendors and forming or strengthening new and existing partnerships.

According to a 5,595-person, 13-country survey from tech consultancy Accenture, since this generation has grown up with daily doses of technology in one form or another, "They don't see bright lines between work
and personal, virtual and physical, sanctioned and prohibited. It's not, 'Would you approve this, boss?' but, 'Whatever gets the job done.'"

In the competitive world of tech journalism and blogging, quality can sometimes take a backseat to speed. While most bloggers double check their drafts before having their work scrutinized by editors and audience members, mistakes do slip through the cracks. With text-to-speech programs, errors become glaringly apparent.

Rapleaf's Auren Hoffman says that hiring is harder in a downturn because the noise goes up but the quality stays the same. That's a pretty strong statement to make, but if it's true then it's all the more remarkable to see which companies are making hires now.

Our site ReadWriteHire covers new hires in tech and new media. Today we're publishing our aggregate numbers for the first 3 months of 2009. Who's hiring? Software and IT companies, social media and social networking companies and marketing and advertising firms.