Programming Blog

In this edition of the Weekly Wrapup, our newsletter summarising the top stories of the week, we present highlights from our coverage of the Web 2.0 Expo (held this week in San Francisco), review the new Skype app for iPhone, discuss the local / mobile Web with a panel of experts in our podcast show RWW Live, check out the winners of the Ribbit VOIP KillerApps Challenge, and more. Also we look at featured stories from ReadWriteHire, our new product which tracks hires in tech and new media.

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Web Products

PhoneGap: People’s Choice Winner at Web 2.0 Expo Launch Pad

The Web 2.0 Expo’s startup showcase, Launch Pad, gave five companies five minutes each to present their product to a panel of experts and the People’s Choice winner was mobile development platform PhoneGap. We present a summary of the pitches in this post. The judges who cut the field from more than 80 applicants down to 5 were Matt Marshall (VentureBeat), Anand Iyer (Microsoft) and ReadWriteWeb’s own Marshall Kirkpatrick.

Nomee Introduces New Social Aggregation Software

This week at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, a company called Nomee revealed a new software application for the purpose of aggregating all your social networking sites into a single desktop experience. In a way, this software is somewhat reminiscent of the web-based PeopleBrowsr in the sense that it’s attempting to pool all your networks and identities into one single window. However, unlike PeopleBrowsr, Nomee is not just aggregation software – it also functions as a social identity management tool, letting you control which identities are shared with which people. That makes Nomee more like a next-gen social address book than anything else.

Status.net Could Point to the Future of Business Intelligence

Few companies have captured the world’s attention online in recent years as much as Twitter has. Rapid, structured, public communication between groups of people is not only a personal paradigm changer for many who have seriously explored the service – it’s also an incredible opportunity to analyze a rich and dynamic set of data about interpersonal conversation. However just as Facebook will never be Twitter because of the lack of clear access it offers outsiders to social data, so too does Twitter have its own limitations. A service called Status.net will launch in May that could overcome some of Twitter’s limitations and make a significant impact on the world we work in.

Skype for iPhone: It’s Real and It’s Spectacular

The official Skype iPhone client has arrived. Although video streaming is a no-show, both full IM and voice communication is supported directly over wireless networks. Plus there are a few additional touches specific to this client that make it really great.

Skype May Be The Biggest Winner From The Web 2.0 Era

Skype does not get the respect it deserves, because eBay not only publicly admitted to overpaying for it but is making a mess of its core business. Another reason may be that Skype flies in the face of conventional Valley wisdom that says it has to be all about social media. Or maybe the fact that Skype came from Europe, and we all know that Europeans are just lunch-eating dilettantes. Whatever the reason, a company that has $500 million in revenue, is profitable and growing, and has a shot at becoming the largest player in what is now a $2 trillion (yes, "t" for trillion) market, should get more respect.

SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS 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.
• Web 3.0 Conference, semantic web and linked data, May 19-20 NYC
• Semantic Technology Conference, the future of the Web, IT, search, business.
• Crowd Science gives you detailed visitor demographics.
• Rackspace provides dedicated server hosting.
• Calais brings semantic functionality into your website or app.
• Aplus provides web hosting services for small business hosting needs.
• MediaTemple provides hosting for RWW.
• Eurekster is a custom social search portal.
• SixApart provides our publishing software MT4.

ReadWriteHire

Who’s Getting Hired in Tech? Q1 Numbers from ReadWriteHire

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.

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Web Trends

RWW Live: The Local & Mobile Web

One of the big trends on the web is more and more location aware / sensitive web applications. Increasingly powerful mobile devices are enabling this. In the latest episode of RWW Live, we talked about how the Web is evolving to include more location aware applications and what barriers are still in the way. We’ll also talked about privacy and other user concerns and what is being done to address them. We had special guests from Yahoo! Fire Eagle, Four Square and Outside.in on the show. The podcast is available for listening to here.

Five Technologies Tim O’Reilly Says Point Past Web 2.0

Tim O’Reilly, co-founder of the Web 2.0 Conference, gave a short address on the 5th anniversary of that event at this week’s Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco and offered some thoughts on what’s going to come next. He discussed five applications that he believes point the way.

Two themes stood out: sensors will surpass humans in front of their keyboards as the primary data source on the web and Moore’s Law will need to be applied to humanity’s greatest problems.

The Future of Mobile

This week at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, Jason Grigsby of Cloud Four, a mobile and web development firm, presented at a session about the mobile web’s future. Specifically, he focused on the different types of mobile applications we have today – native apps, mobile web apps, and hybrid apps – and the challenges of developing across multiple platforms.

What Can Voice Do For You? Ribbit Announces Winners of KillerApps Challenge

Ribbit, the VOIP platform that was bought by British Telecom last year, announced the winners of its $100,000 KillerApps challenge today. The contest was obviously meant to stimulate interest in Ribbit’s APIs among developers, and judging from the line-up of winning applications, a lot of developers came up with highly creative ways of using Ribbit’s platform in their apps.

SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY

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

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