Over June, the Facebook app of travel reviews site TripAdvisor has increased its Monthly Active Users (MAU) by over 67 percent. It now has 31 million MAU, moving it up to fourth on AppData’s Facebook Apps Leaderboard – just above the ever-popular MyCalendar birthday app and Zynga’s top ‘Ville game CityVille. What makes it even more intriguing is…
Oh Dear, Maker Studios Isn’t Solving YouTube’s Quality Problem…
Maker Studios is the fifth most popular YouTube partner in the U.S., according to statistics reported today by Nielsen. Maker Studios models itself on Hollywood movie studios, except it produces content for YouTube instead of the Big Screen. It’s a great concept, but unfortunately low-brow fare like William The Psychic isn’t going to help YouTube…
Top Trends of 2012: The Visual Web
Continuing our mid-year review of the top trends of 2012, in this post we look at the emergence of the Visual Web. Two of the hottest products in the first half of 2012 are the best examples of this phenomenon: Pinterest and Instagram. But one or two swallows don’t make a summer. Beautiful design is a key part of online business in this era…
Reimagining Home Improvement: Houzz vs. Better Homes and Gardens
We’re running a series based on Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends report mid-year, in which she listed 50+ industries that are being “reimagined” by social and mobile technologies. One of her slides was about the home improvement information industry, which up till recently revolved around broadcast media like magazines and TV. Meeker pointed to a…
Top Trends of 2012: The Consumer Cloud
In 2012 we’ve seen amazing growth in the Consumer Cloud, meaning cloud computing for everyday users. There are three main categories in the Consumer Cloud: storage, sync, and notes. Dropbox, Apple’s iCloud and Evernote (respectively) have been the most impressive performers in each category so far this year.
Why Pinterest Has NOT Reimagined Scrapbooking
There’s been a lot of talk in the tech community that Pinterest has changed the popular art of scrapbooking. Internet analyst Mary Meeker even suggested that Pinterest had reimagined scrapbooking. But after looking at how two scrapbooking gurus are using Pinterest, our conclusion is that the lucrative scrapbook market is still ripe for…
Nobody Is Using Facebook’s Life Events – Not Even Mark Zuckerberg
When Facebook announced Timeline in September last year, a key new feature was the ability to define different types of “life events.” Events such as starting a new job, entering a new relationship or getting married, making a home improvement, getting a tattoo. The idea behind Life Events was to better structure Timeline data. Unfortunately for…
Reimagining Books: How Citia’s iPad App Compares to a Paper Book
Kevin Kelly’s book What Technology Wants was one of my favorite non-fiction books of 2011. In my April 2011 review, I gave it 5 out of 5 stars. It’s fitting that Kelly’s book is the first to be turned into an iPad app on a new iOS platform called Citia. The result isn’t an ebook though, it’s more like a condensed summary of the book’s main ideas…
The (Not So Sad) Decline of FarmVille & Zynga’s Other Villes
Earlier this week we examined why Zynga is shedding users, causing its stock price to almost halve from its December IPO level. Zynga rose to prominence on the back of a farming simulation social game called FarmVille. Its success spawned a series of other ‘Ville’ games, such as CityVille, CastleVille, FishVille and PetVille. The theme of these…
Reimagining Sports News: Bleacher Report
Sports news website Bleacher Report (B/R) was mentioned twice in Mary Meeker’s 2012 Internet Trends report: as an example of re-imagination of both sports news and TV. Bleacher Report, founded in 2006 by four sports fans from Silicon Valley, has become so influential that Time Warner is rumored to be trying to acquire it. What makes B/R stand…
Why Zynga is Shedding Users
Social gaming company Zynga had an outstanding 2011, leading to a well-hyped IPO in December. But Zynga’s biggest risk was always an over-reliance on Facebook, with most of its revenue and users coming from the social network. It’s now six months after Zynga’s IPO and its stock price has halved, currently sitting at under $5. That’s because many of…
Reimagining Finance: StockTwits
Mary Meeker’s recent Internet Trends presentation introduced a new buzzword into the tech world: reimagination. Meeker listed 50 different market categories that are in the process of being reimagined – in other words, disrupted or changed. Over the coming months, we’ll profile some of the leading reimagineers of this Web era. We start with a…
Top Trends of 2012: Video on Tablets
One in every ten tablet users views video content almost daily on their device, according to a new report by comScore. The study also found that tablet users are nearly three times more likely to watch video on their device compared to smartphone users.
Foursquare Takes on Yelp With Recommendations. Our Verdict: Good Start, Not There Yet
Today location check-in app Foursquare unveiled a new design for its iOS and Android mobile apps. It now focuses on recommending places for you to go, based on your current location. It’s also more social. This is a sensible pivot, but Foursquare is not yet at the place it needs to be.
OpenSky is Pinterest For Shopping (But Wait, There’s More: Frictionless Sharing!)
Despite GroupOn’s stock price struggles this year, online commerce is a market ripe for disruption. OpenSky is a relatively new e-commerce site that is getting buzz and gaining traction, thanks in part to the presence of celebrities like Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi. OpenSky started off tapping Twitter for inspiration (you “follow” celebrities…
Meet Our New Editors: Ted Greenwald and Fredric Paul
Since ReadWriteWeb was acquired by SAY Media in December, we’ve been busy beefing up our editorial and writing team. Today I’m pleased to welcome Fredric Paul and Ted Greenwald to our growing team. Fred as our Business Editor, Ted as a Senior Editor. The two will be based in SAY Media’s San Francisco office, alongside our Managing Editor Abraham…
What Ever Happened To… Start Pages
“Study the past if you would define the future.” Confucius, Chinese philosopher.
In this new ReadWriteWeb series, we look back on products that were important innovations of their time. But this isn’t merely nostalgia. As Confucius said, we’ll make it relevant by identifying lessons to apply now and in the future. We start with a product…
Which Of These 3 Social Media Profiles Are You?
You’ve got a new piece of content you want to share, but where do you put it? Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, your Wordpress blog… all of the above?! With these and many other options to choose from, posting on the Web can be confusing – even a little stressful. But never fear, ReadWriteWeb is here to help. We’ve identified three…
Mary Meeker Re-Imagines Nearly Everything
Today at the D10 Conference, star analyst Mary Meeker gave her latest presentation of Internet Trends. You can download the presentation here (PDF), or view it at the bottom of this post. It’s well worth spending time perusing the whole presentation, but here are the main takeaways. Get ready for lots of re-imagining and proof of rapid growth!
More Bad News For HP: The New Google Chromebook Compared to a Typical HP Laptop
Today, Google announced two new computers, the latest Chromebook laptop and a new desktop machine called the Chromebox. After reading Jon Mitchell’s thorough review, it became apparent that there’s now very little difference in user experience between the Chromebook and a traditional laptop (for example, one from HP that runs on a Windows OS…