I care about the open web because it's the platform I develop on. I have good skills and development tools for the Web and Mac OS and Windows. So that's where I develop. If I have my way I'll be able to continue doing that indefinitely, but I worry about Apple and the future of the Mac. I have a feeling the same reasons I can't develop for IOS will turn out to make the Mac impossible for me to work on. Or maybe I'll have to stop updating my system at some point. For a while it seemed that Twitt...  show all text

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Chris Silva, my colleague at Altimeter Group, released a useful report today that I wanted to share with you here. Mobile is important and I believe you know this. However, when we consider mobile, we often think about the experience when and where it begins. But, we often miss the opportunity to lead a more meaningful journey as it may travel from small screen to larger screens across laptops, desktops and beyond. And along the way, how can we participate in the journey to provide information,...  show all text

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Google is celebrating the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens with a doodle. But the doodle also seems to be trying to get you to use Google Books. Another example of Google's new commercialism?

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I am thrilled to announce that my fourth book, Stellar Presentations: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Giving Great Talks has gone live on Kindle. A Paperback version should be available in about a week. It is not a social media book. Stellar Presentations is a brief but deep look at the craft and strategy of presenting to investors, the media and particularly at tech conferences. It is based on my many years experience as a presentation coach, a conference reporter and as a keynote speaker. It is a...  show all text

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When Google announced that the Chrome browser would become its own operating system and run on netbooks, the thought around the tech community was that eventually Google would have to merge Chrome with Android. After all, what is the point of supporting two disparate mobile operating systems? The convergence has not yet occurred but may have taken a step further today as Google announced Chrome for Android available on devices running version 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Chrome for Android is a win ...  show all text

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If you want to slay orcs and elves, there’s plenty of options, but the millions of car racing gamers out there have few places to chase the checkered flag. That’s going to change because today, Ignite Game Technologies closed a $5 million Series C round from private investors bringing it to $17.5 million in funding. It will use the cash to speed up development of its recently launched Simraceway freemium game, as well as its skill matching technology. Ignite plans to hook users with high-profile  show all text

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In 2008, we launched Google Chrome to help make the web better. We’re excited that millions of people around the world use Chrome as their primary browser and we want to keep improving that experience. Today, we're introducing Chrome for Android Beta, which brings many of the things you’ve come to love about Chrome to your Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone or tablet. Like the desktop version, Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity, but it also features seamless sign-in and  show all text

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Online video isn’t just about clips of cute kittens anymore: Netflix and Hulu have both invested in original programming, and YouTube and others are stepping up their game as well. Check out web-first shows like Lilyhammer and Battleground in this episode of Cord Cutters: Watch this video for free on Video Previously on Cord Cutters: Netgear’s NeoTV reviewed The Cord Cutters holiday gift guide Channel Master — a DVR for cord cutting A first look at Google TV 2.0 A first look at the Roku 2 Bro...  show all text

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Led by apps for mobile devices, the "app economy" is responsible for almost half a million jobs in the U.S., estimates a new study sponsored by CEO network TechNet. But the study also says figures may represent "jobs not lost."

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Rapportive, which makes a browser plugin that overlays Gmail with contextual information about email contacts, is being acquired by LinkedIn, sources said. LinkedIn declined to comment, while Rapportive CEO Rahul Vohra ducked our attempts to talk to him. Sources familiar with the negotiations said LinkedIn offered Rapportive “low teens” of millions of dollars worth of cash. The deal has not officially closed yet. Rapportive, which is still available only for Gmail, overlays an email correspon...  show all text

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Dag Kittlaus was co-founder and CEO at Siri, which was acquired by Apple in 2010. For decades, Hollywood has been portraying machines that humans can converse with, delegate tasks to, and command. Remember the HAL 9000, KITT the car, COMPUTER from Star Trek, or even the brilliantly conceived and visualized Apple “Knowledge Navigator” from over 20 years ago? The day is dawning. Hello Siri. The response to Siri has exceeded even my own imagination … and I have a rather vast imagination. I don’t b...  show all text

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In 2008, a UK-based Adobe Acrobat engineer remarked, "I believe in striving to minimize the use of paper, but I do believe that we will probably never reach a position where paper is eliminated from our workplaces." This morning, his predictions were clearly confirmed by a study published by the information professionals organization AIIM. The study shows that while the exchange of PDF files as e-mail attachments has reduced the volume of paperwork traded between IT professionals, that reduction  show all text

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Path is a lovely app. It pushes all the right buttons. It's mobile, it's tactile, it's personal, it's full of people we love and moments that matter to us. It makes us feel good. It's got all the greatest hits a post-Facebook social app should have. It's also free. "Facebook will always be free," it tells us, so free is now the standard. Free apps are expensive, though; we pay with our data. Whenever Facebook or Google messes with our privacy, this is the cost of doing business for free. Path is  show all text

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Here at ReadWriteWeb, we encourage safer Internet use. We try to bring you the stories that help you navigate the World Wide Interwebs. So we wanted to make sure you know that today is Safer Internet Day, and it's meant especially for children and young people. Past Safer Internet Day themes have focused on cyberbullying and social networking. This year's very apropos topic is "connecting generations." How do we make sure everyone on the Internet - from young kids to grandparents - feel safe? S...  show all text

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Today, mobile promotion and discovery service AppsFire is launching a new toolkit for developers called App Booster. Meant to boost user engagement and retention, two of the toughest challenges developers face today, the App Booster SDK (software development kit) introduces a suite of tools for things like in-app notifications, user feedback, analytics and mobile app cross-promotion. According to AppsFire co-founder Ouriel Ohayon, mobile app engagement is not optimal today because developers do...  show all text

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A new Microsoft blog post strongly implies that both Metro-style and Desktop apps will be supported on Windows 8 on ARM, as Microsoft originally promised.

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Could the app economy be the cure for the United States’ employment doldrums? A new report suggests that the nascent app economy spurred on by iOS, Android and Facebook apps has generated 466,000 jobs in the U.S. economy since 2007. In the report by technology trade group TechNet, Michael Mandel of the South Mountain Economics, who conducted the research, found that 311,000 app-related jobs have been generated and another 155,000 jobs have also been indirectly created from the app boom. The fig...  show all text

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Sergey Brin has a beard! We learned this from photos of a recent Google event. There's a theory out there that men who usually don't wear beards grow them when they want to reflect an inner change on the outside. What's going on in Sergey's life to prompt the beard? Does it have something to do with how his cofounder, Larry Page, is now CEO?  Probably. Additional reporting by Jay Yarow, Ellis Hamburger, and Steve Kovach. See the rest of the story at Business Insider Please follow SAI on  show all text

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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been under fire from world leaders to step down this week. He’s also under fire from hacktivist group Anonymous, who leaked hundreds of his office’s emails on Monday. While Anonymous is infamous for its hacking know-how, it doesn’t take a genius computer programmer to guess one of the passwords commonly used by Assad’s office accounts: 12345. The string of consecutive numbers is the second-weakest password according to a 2011 study. Anonymous broke into the ...  show all text

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In a recent profile, the New York Times takes special note of the good luck Sheryl Sandberg has had in her rise to the top. What does it take for someone to rise to the top -- the very top -- of a field? Hard work, mentors, connections, brains, charm, ambition -- it's a long list. But certainly one thing that helps very successful people get where they are is the mystical quantity we call "luck." Luck, it must be said, is a loaded word. Sometimes someone's luck is nothing of their own doing, a  show all text

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The must-have app on the iPhone is not iMessage. It's not iTunes or Safari or even Find My iPhone. It's Instagram, the photo-sharing app that once described itself as "quirky." Cultish would be more appropriate these days. More »

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Guardian Josh Halliday reports that British broadcaster Sky News has issued extremely restrictive new social media guidelines, “including a contentious ban on retweeting rival ‘journalists or people on Twitter.’ “ An email to staff warned that “such information could be wrong… Read more

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Even if you haven’t ever visited popular visual bookmarking site Pinterest, you might recognize its design elements — which have been popping up everywhere since the startup burst onto the mainstream scene in 2011. The site doesn’t use traditional web building blocks. “It’s almost like a window-shopping mode,” says Khoi Vinh, the former design director for NYTimes.com. “It puts the ball back in the user’s court,” muses Andrew Beck, a web designer at Blue Fountain Media. “It flattens the informa...  show all text

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Rapportive, which makes a browser plugin that overlays Gmail with contextual information about email contacts, is being acquired by LinkedIn, sources said.

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Path uploads your entire iPhone address book to its servers 8 Feb 2012 – Singapore [Update] Dave Morin, the CEO of Path has responded in the comments and I’ve pasted it below. As an aside – never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this to blow up like this. I hope we can keep calm and continue to discuss this sensibly. Arun, thanks for pointing this out. We actually think this is an important conversation and take this very seriously. We upload the address book to our servers in order to help t...  show all text

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Reporters banned from reposting non-company tweets and told to check with the news desk before breaking news stories Sky News has told its journalists not to repost information from any Twitter users who are not an employee of the broadcaster. An email to staff on Tuesday laid out new social media guidelines for Sky News employees, including a contentious ban on retweeting rival "journalists or people on Twitter". The new guidelines also warn Sky News journalists to "stick to your own beat" and...  show all text

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