Week of May 5, 2008

Web Blog Crosses Over Big Time

Friday, May 9, 2008

Every so often we mention the influential tech blog Techcrunch here. How influential is it? Well, the blog just signed a syndication deal with the Washington Post. We don't see pure web content crossing over to traditional media very often, and it happens much less often with newspapers, so consider this once again an indication of the increasing power of the Internet as a stand-alone media platform.

Microsoft Still Rules

Thursday, May 8, 2008

There was a fascinating column in Techcrunch (www.techcrunch.com) this week by productivity analysis start-up Rescuetime, which looked at how much time people at the office spent on their computers and which applications they used. The twist is that the data was focused on "early adaptors," so we would expect to see some out-of-the ordinary choices. Despite these being early adopters, however, the usage path almost always leads to Microsoft. Despite the trendiness of Google and the online traffic dominance of Yahoo, Microsoft is the leader in email (Outlook), messaging (MSN Messenger), Browsing (Internet Explorer), and every major office application (Word, Excel, Powerpoint).

Website Demographic Data

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Online site ratings service Quantcast has announced the availability of

demographic data for websites. Quantcast is using a combination of panel

data and traffic numbers from embedded code, including those used by some

You Want Local News On Your mobile phone?

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

If you want local news on your mobile phone, who do you go to? Well, as of right now the Associated Press wants you to go to them, and they are working on a compelling platform to do just that. AP is currently negotiating agreements with local newspapers to create ZIP code-tagged news feeds for mobile phone users. Basically, you input your ZIP code, and AP sends customized local news to your cell phone via its browser.

Interestingly, although this would look to be directly competitive with local newspapers, a large number of local newspapers have already jumped on board the program.

Microsoft Tackles Flash Games

Monday, May 5, 2008

Last year Microsoft launched its attempt to supplant Adobe Flash as the rich content development platform of choice on the Internet. Entitled Silverlight, the platform received rave reviews and is currently being used on sites like hardrockcafe.com. One area where Flash is dominant and hadn't been in Silverlight's headlights is online games. That changed this week with the release of Popfly Game Creator, a way for Silverlight developers to more easily create games.

While still in its early stages, this is a further indication (along with Adobe's release of Flash into a more open license) that the future of the web is also going to be a battle over the platforms that power rich content, which is currently dominated by Adobe.