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Introducing the ReadWriteWeb Guide to Online Community Management

Our First Premium Report for Businesses

Recently we released our first premium report: The ReadWriteWeb Guide to Online Community Management. It's been in the works for more than four months and we believe it's unlike anything else you've seen. Businesses seeking to engage with online communities on their own websites or all around the social web will find the guide invaluable in getting up to speed on the state of the art and making sure their employees have the foundation they need to be effective.

The end product is in two parts. Part one is a 75 page collection of case studies, advice and discussion concerning the most important issues in online community. Part two is a companion online aggregator that delivers the most-discussed articles each day written by experts on community management from around the web. The Guide is available for purchase at a price of $299. (You won't be charged until you complete a few simple steps on that page.) You can download a free sample section of the report here.

Web Trends

Web Trends: What's New in 2009, Part 2

Last week we discussed some of the new trends we're seeing on the Web in 2009: open data, structured data, apps that filter content effectively, real-time, personalization, mobile (especially location-based), and Internet of Things (the Web in real-world objects). We asked for your thoughts on these trends, along with your suggestions on what we should add. Also we were interested to know what products you've seen this year that are doing something new and 'beyond Web 2.0'. In this post we look at some of your responses, to try to define further what defines this current era of the Web.

Web 3.0 Might Be Really Stupid

What are you doing? How about now? Has anything changed since you started reading this blog post? Every story has a who, what, where, when, and why - but the event-driven nature of the social Web may be putting such a premium on broadcasting about what we're doing, that software designed to help us answer important questions like who and why are at risk of being neglected. It seems quite likely that we're going to miss those opportunities because our software is focused entirely on doing (and advertising) instead of on helping us think as much as it could. Of course that's much harder to do.

ClearSpring Sees What 1/2 The Internet is Doing (API Coming Soon)

It's a little bit scary, but widget and sharing service ClearSpring said this morning that the company's media widgets and newly acquired AddThis plug-in are now seen by more than 500 million unique viewers each month, according to Comscore. That's half the people on the internet, the company says. That's a whole lot of information. ClearSpring sees not just what you're sharing, but nearly everything you're doing on the pages its products are on. (AddThis is on ReadWriteWeb, for example.) So what on earth is it going to do with all that data? Like they said in Spiderman, "with great power, comes great responsibility." We asked ClearSpring's CEO about these super hero-like responsibilities and his thoughts are in this post.

Report on Mobile Web Use Shows Apple/Android Usability Issues, Successes

According to a report released this week from mobile advertising company AdMob, smartphones accounted for nearly three times more use than their relative market share last month. The report also found that relative use of both mobile-specific websites and HTML sites was highest on Apple and Android devices. Results were based on user-generated requests for mobile ads during April 2009 as well as on a Gartner report on smartphone sales in Q4 2008.

SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY

A Word from Our Sponsors

We'd like to thank ReadWriteWeb's sponsors, without whom we couldn't bring you all these stories every week!

• Mashery is the leading provider of API management services.
• Smub, a bookmarking and link posting tool for the iPhone.
• Power Reviews, get the facts about customer reviews.
• Mollom, stop comment spam and build your community.
• Semantic Technology Conference, the future of the Web, IT, search, business.
• Crowd Science gives you detailed visitor demographics.
• hakia is a semantic search engine.
• Rackspace provides dedicated server hosting.
• Socialtext brings you 5 Best Practices for Enterprise Collaboration Success
• Calais brings semantic functionality into your website or app.
• Aplus provides web hosting services for small business hosting needs.
• MediaTemple provides hosting for RWW.
• SixApart provides our publishing software MT4.

ReadWriteStart

Our new channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.

Working Booms and Busts to Your Advantage (Cyclical Trends)

Figuring out which wave to ride (secular trends) is vital. Figuring out when to get on and when to get off is also important. You will never get the timing exactly right. It is like calling the top or bottom of a market. If you do manage to make exactly the right call, it is probably luck. But you can get the basic timing right. It doesn't take a genius to see which cycle you're in at any given time. What matters is figuring out what to do in each stage of the cycle.

SEE MORE STARTUPS COVERAGE IN OUR READWRITESTART CHANNEL

Web Products

Google Wave: Google Tries to Reinvent Email

Google this week announced a new Internet-based communications and collaboration platform; Google Wave. While some of the details are still a bit sketchy, Google Wave looks to be an integrated communications platform that brings together email, chat, photo-sharing, and collaborative editing features. Google describes a 'wave' as "equal parts conversation and document" and the Wave team basically sees it as a replacement for email and other collaboration tools.

Bing It Is: Microsoft Rolls Out Its New Search Engine

It was no secret that Microsoft was getting ready to roll out a new search engine, and this week, the company began the official roll-out of Bing - the successor of the company's less than successful Live Search efforts. Formerly known as Kumo, Bing, which should become available worldwide by June 3, is Microsoft's latest attempt to steal market share away from Google. According to Microsoft, Bing, while providing a good general search experience, wants to focus on providing an especially good user experience in four verticals: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition, and finding a local business.

Comparing Yahoo and Google's Voice Search Applications

At the end of last week, Yahoo! introduced an update to their iPhone application (iTunes URL) which now includes the ability to perform web searches using only your voice. This is the first real competitor to Google's Mobile App, whose voice recognition technology came to the iPhone back in November of 2008. Now the only question is how do these two apps compare?

PeopleBrowsr Launches Beta

PeopleBrowsr, the online dashboard for tracking the social web (previous coverage) left alpha this week and moved into beta. Although many people use the app for tracking Twitter, it's actually capable of tracking a ton of the top web properties including Facebook, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, and even RSS feeds. You can also use the app to update multiple networks at once. The service was built more with the needs of brand managers, social media marketers, and other customer service professionals in mind than it was built for the casual everyday user.

Mir:ror: A Glimpse Into The Future of an RFID World

Mir:ror is an Internet of Things app from the company Violet (follow on Twitter @violetOS). As the name suggests, it is literally a mirror - but an Internet-connected one which detects the objects you show it, triggering applications and multimedia content on your computer. It works via RFID stamps, known as "ztamp:s" in the company's terminology. These are colorful adhesive stamps that contain a relay chip. When the user waves a stamped object over the mir:ror, a pre-programmed action occurs. For example waving a stamped coffee mug over the mir:ror might trigger your computer to read the news aloud to you.

SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY

That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Subscribe to Weekly Wrapup

You can subscribe to the Weekly Wrapup by RSS or by email (form below).

RWW Weekly Wrap-up Email Subscription form:

Introducing the ReadWriteWeb Guide to Online Community Management

Our First Premium Report for Businesses

Recently we released our first premium report: The ReadWriteWeb Guide to Online Community Management. It's been in the works for more than four months and we believe it's unlike anything else you've seen. Businesses seeking to engage with online communities on their own websites or all around the social web will find the guide invaluable in getting up to speed on the state of the art and making sure their employees have the foundation they need to be effective.

The end product is in two parts. Part one is a 75 page collection of case studies, advice and discussion concerning the most important issues in online community. Part two is a companion online aggregator that delivers the most-discussed articles each day written by experts on community management from around the web. The Guide is available for purchase at a price of $299. (You won't be charged until you complete a few simple steps on that page.) You can download a free sample section of the report here.

Web Trends

Web 3.0 or Not, There's Something Different About 2009

This week ReadWriteWeb founder Richard MacManus gave a short presentation at a local event, Webstock Mini, in which he looked at some of the trends we're seeing in Web Technology this year. The presentation is embedded below. He gave the term 'Web 3.0' a bit of a ribbing. But his overall theme was that there is indeed a difference in the products we're seeing in 2009, compared to the ones we saw at the height of 'Web 2.0' (2005-08).

Linked Data is Blooming: Why You Should Care

Last week we discussed how the current era of the Web is evolving. One of the concepts we noted was Linked Data, an idea whose time has come in 2009. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, gave a must-view talk at the TED Conference earlier this year, evangelizing Linked Data. He said that Linked Data was a sea change akin to the invention of the WWW itself. We've gone from a Web of documents, via the WWW, to a Web of data. Berners-Lee is now on a crusade for everyone from government departments, to individuals, to open up their data and put it on the Web - so that others can link to it and use it. In this post we give a high-level overview of Linked Data. Read on to stop and smell the roses.

Report: Mint Considers Selling Anonymized Data from Its Users

According to a report from Bloomberg this week, Mint.com's CEO Aaron Patzer is considering selling anonymized data about the service's users. Mint, the online personal finance aggregator, obviously sits on a lot of very interesting data, some of which the company has shared on its blog now and then. Given that this was just a short interview, the details about this plan are more than vague, and it would be interesting to know what kind of data Mint might be planning to sell. What is clear, though, is that Mint will have to be very careful if it doesn't want to scare away its customers.

Baratunde Thurston on Content Curation, Real-Time Search, and "Analytics Porn"

In New York City, on the 16th floor of the Roger Smith Hotel, we caught up with social media superhero Baratunde Thurston, web editor for The Onion. Thurston started getting into this whole "Internet" thing in simpler times when the social web was called Usenet. He now carves out his niche at the overlap of the Venn diagram of comedy, politics, and tech. As an official Internet old-timer who makes it his business to stay relevant, Thurston has particularly useful insights on the business of curating applicable content with great efficiency and timeliness.

SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY

A Word from Our Sponsors

We'd like to thank ReadWriteWeb's sponsors, without whom we couldn't bring you all these stories every week!

• Mashery is the leading provider of API management services.
• Smub, a bookmarking and link posting tool for the iPhone.
• Power Reviews, get the facts about customer reviews.
• Mollom, stop comment spam and build your community.
• Semantic Technology Conference, the future of the Web, IT, search, business.
• Crowd Science gives you detailed visitor demographics.
• hakia is a semantic search engine.
• Rackspace provides dedicated server hosting.
• Socialtext brings you 5 Best Practices for Enterprise Collaboration Success
• Calais brings semantic functionality into your website or app.
• Aplus provides web hosting services for small business hosting needs.
• MediaTemple provides hosting for RWW.
• SixApart provides our publishing software MT4.

ReadWriteStart

Our new channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.

Finding the Right Wave to Ride (Secular Trends)

This is one post/chapter in a serialized book called Startup 101. For the introduction and table of contents, please click here.

Surfing sure sounds like more fun than work, but when you catch a technology or market wave just right, it seems almost as good. But you need the right-sized wave.

SEE MORE STARTUPS COVERAGE IN OUR READWRITESTART CHANNEL

Web Products

The Dam Just Broke: Facebook Opens Up to OpenID

This week Facebook became the biggest example of a social network that allows users to log-in with OpenID credentials granted to them by other companies' websites. Major networks have said for months that their ID could be used as OpenID, but becoming "relying parties" that accepted OpenID from elsewhere was the step everyone was waiting for. The dam has broken. It's ironic that it's Facebook that did it. Facebook is probably the most closed of all the major social networks (other than LinkedIn) and is so far ahead of everyone else in market share that traditional logic would argue that they have no interest in this kind of interoperability. This is the kind of step that was expected from networks more open and, frankly, far behind Facebook. Nevertheless, it has happened and it's big news.

Is This The Future of the iPhone? Push, Background, Bundles

Version 3.0 of the iPhone operating system is in beta testing among developers and if all the actual and rumored changes come to fruition, the iPhone user experience is likely to be very different soon. In this post we'll take a brief look at three of the biggest changes being talked about: push notifications, background apps and bundled software. Some of these changes are much more likely than others. We've also got a few fantasies about what we wish was coming soon to the iPhone.

Pandora Expects to Make a Profit in 2010 - Still Growing Rapidly

We have seen our fair share of doom and gloom this year, but, according to a report from Bloomberg.com, at least Pandora, the free online music discovery service, expects to be profitable next year. Pandora was founded in in 2000, and derives its revenue from targeted audio advertising in its music streams and affiliate sales through Amazon's MP3 store and iTunes. In the interview with Bloomberg, Pandora's founder Tim Westergreen also disclosed that the service is currently adding about 50,000 new users a day, and that the service's successful iPhone app is responsible for bringing in about 20,000 of these new users.

Business Cards Suck: Try These Tools Instead

Business cards are a horror show. When it gets to the point that you have to either resort to a die-cut, motion-sensitive, titanium-plated laser show of a card or get your contact info embossed on beef jerky to avoid being forgotten in the trash heap of useless swag and Clif Bar crumbs at the bottom of some biz dev guy's carry-on, we think it's safe to admit that the whole business card milieu needs an attitude adjustment. Here are a few cool, tech-forward tools to ensure neither you, nor your contact details, are lost in the shuffle.

Digg: Shouts Out, Share on Facebook and Twitter In

During Digg's Townhall (embedded in the post) this week, founder Kevin Rose and CEO Jay Adelson announced that the shout feature on Digg will be removed later this week to be replaced with a new share option that will "streamline your ability to share on Facebook and Twitter." A Digg spokesperson told us that "we've elected to remove shouts in favor of more popular sharing options, based on user feedback and broader market research." The new share feature will also include an e-mail option.

SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY

That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.