Cybercultural
Cybercultural
Richard MacManus
Cybercultural chronicles internet history and its cultural impact, from the pre-web era to the dot-com boom, Web 2.0, and beyond. Written by pioneering tech blogger Richard MacManus.
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David Bowie on a computer in 1994; photo by Dave Allocca. In March 1994, Brian Eno traveled to David Bowie’s studio in Montreux, Switzerland, to work with him for the first time since the “Berlin Trilogy” of albums in the late-70s. It...
Total Distortion CD-ROM, a "music video adventure game"; screenshot via Internet Archive. In April 1994, the PBS tv series Computer Chronicles devoted an entire show to multimedia. “The personal computer revolution started about 40...
2011 was the year Facebook, the world’s leading social network, launched Timeline and introduced its algorithmic feed. These changes were partly influenced by a formidable new competitor: Google+. Meanwhile, Android overtook Apple's iOS...
The first Web 2.0 Conference program and the author in early Web 2.0. Web 2.0 was well and truly over by the time I left ReadWriteWeb. There had been no Web 2.0 conferences in 2012, and by the end of the year, even O’Reilly Media — the...
Interim redesign for ReadWriteWeb in July 2012, before the domain name change. The pressure certainly came off me in 2012, after I'd sold the business, but I still had a job to do as ReadWriteWeb’s editor in chief. I traveled back to San...
I’m thrilled to announce that my book, Bubble Blog: From Outsider to Insider in Silicon Valley's Web 2.0 Revolution, is now available to purchase as a paperback or eBook. Click on any of these links to buy your copy: Paperback, US$19.99:...
When I arrived in San Francisco on Saturday, December 3, I was hoping to close the deal with SAY Media by the end of the week. Sean and I would be in meetings with them from Monday to Wednesday, and I would fly back to New Zealand on...
SAY Media's Troy Young at the company's Create 2011 event; image via YouTube. It was Thursday, October 20, 2011, and I only had one meeting on my schedule: SAY Media at 9:00 a.m. The Web 2.0 Summit had ended yesterday, but with all the...
2011 edition of the Web 2.0 Map; via Wayback Machine. To prepare for the San Francisco M&A meetings, I’d created a ReadWriteWeb Vision presentation and Sean had created a slide deck about our business growth. Mine was all about our brand...
Marshall and I reflecting on our ReadWriteWeb adventure at the Green Dragon pub, Portland, October 2011. Note: I'm not sure who took this photo, but I found it via Wayback Machine. An opportunity arose to discuss a possible sale of...
ReadWriteWeb homepage, August 2011; image via Wayback Machine. After the 2WAY Summit (in June 2011), I confirmed with Marshall that he was okay with me announcing the new editorial structure to the team. He’d been noticeably unhappy...
Jason Calacanis and Abraham Hyatt at the 2WAY Summit; photo by Shashi Bellamkonda. We couldn’t have asked for a better venue. The Roone Arledge Auditorium at Columbia University had a full stage, sprung wooden floors, round tables...
What followed Web 2.0 was not Web 3.0 (or Web3 for that matter), but a degraded version of the internet. Maybe we should call it Web -1.0, but a more scatological term has taken hold instead: enshittification. It describes a period,...
Digital Archaeology exhibit at Internet Week 2011; photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid. Before I left for New York in the first week of June 2011, I reviewed our May traffic. It was dismal. We’d had our lowest monthly total page views...
RWW management team, SXSW 2011; from left to right: Richard MacManus, Sean Ammirati, Marshall Kirkpatrick; photo by Shashi Bellamkonda. After the ReadWriteWeb management meetings and in-between the SXSW partying, I met up with Sarah...