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Check Out the Companies That Make ReadWriteWeb Possible

Our readers know ReadWriteWeb as the blog that's ahead of the technology curve. Our sponsors know us as that, too. Once a week we introduce our sponsors to our readers and let them know a little more about who they are and what they do. You can say thanks to the companies that make ReadWriteWeb happen by tweeting them (see the link below each sponsor) or following them using our Twitter list.

Interested in being a ReadWriteWeb sponsor? Our readers are smart, tech-savvy decision makers; 40% have a graduate degree or PhD, and over 45% play a key role in information technology purchasing decisions. More than 1 million people on Twitter follow us to stay abreast of the latest Web technology trends from around the globe. To find out more about our sponsor packages, visit our advertising page or email our COO.

Sponsor

Tableau

sponsor tableau Tableau Public is a free service that lets anyone publish interactive data to the web in interesting and compelling graphs. Download Tableau Public and in minutes, you can create interactive graphs, dashboards, maps and tables from virtually any data and embed them on your website or blog in minutes. Anyone can do it. You don't need to be a programmer or hire one - no language to learn, no plug-ins, no API. Your blog or website will stand out with colorful, interactive data visualizations. Bloggers using Tableau Public are averaging 3 times more reader comments.

And, once on the web, anyone can interact with your graph and the data. They can re-embed your work, download the data, or create their own visualizations. Check out our gallery to see some of the cool graphs bloggers have created. Or learn how in our 5 minute video.

Thank Tableau on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Medill School of Journalism

The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University offers programs that combine the enduring skills and values of journalism with new techniques and knowledge that are essential to thrive in a digital world. You might have a passion for creating finely crafted prose, or for telling stories using visual tools. Maybe you are invigorated by the possibilities of interactive publishing, or by videography for the small screen. Maybe you are an experienced professional looking to renew and retool your multimedia skills. You can find your niche in Medill's graduate journalism program.

Thank the Medill School of Journalism on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Mashery

Mashery is a platform for Web services, allowing companies to manage their APIs using Mashery's expertise. At the "Business of APIs" conference, Mashery CEO Oren Michels explained to the audience that while APIs are a technology, their use is a business decision. He went on to say that Mashery has helped customers such as WhitePages.com, Thumbplay, Compete.com, and Calais. Check out the white paper "Five steps to scaling your business development using Web services" to discover how you can use APIs for your business.

You can find out more about APIs and their business use at www.mashery.com.

Thank Mashery on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Web Visions

WebVisions explores the future of Web design, technology, user experience and business strategy from May 19 - 21, 2010 at the Oregon Convention Center. Attend workshops with the experts, chill out in the WebVisions lounge, and network with speakers and fellow attendees. This year's all-star lineup of speakers includes Christian Crumlish and Erin Malone, Merlin Mann (43folders.com), Luke Williams (frog design), Renny Gleeson (Weiden+Kennedy), Kate Rutter (Adaptive Path), Scott Porad (LOLCATS) and many more.

Since 2001, WebVisions has built a loyal audience of designers, technologists and industry leaders. We invite you to join us for an event that's seen as "the creative conference for the Web." Register now!

Thank WebVisions on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

BrandBucket

BrandBucket offers brandable domain names hand-picked for startups, new products, and personal endeavors. A team of branding experts select names that are unique, memorable, and that can grow into a strong worldwide brand presence. Each name is packaged for easy sale, and backed by helpful customer service agents to ensure a smooth transaction. BrandBucket offers branding agency expertise without branding agency prices, in a do-it-yourself easy and secure shopping experience.

We are proud of our long line of successful clients like envato.com, setster.com and visualIQ.com, and we are available to walk you through our large selection of domains to help find your next brand name. Also make sure you check out BrandBucket's blog on business names strategy and branding advice.

Thank BrandBucket on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Search Engine Strategies Toronto

sestoronto_125x125_3frames.disc.gif From social media to local search to video SEO, Search Engine Strategies Toronto (June 9-11) puts you in front of the experts who will help you sort which technologies and channel will take you to the next level and which are just hype.

Discover how search can put you in control with more measurable results, targeted reach, and constant visibility than traditional marketing. Start making decisions based on the facts and learn how to increase conversions with consistent returns. Register today! Enter RWW15 to receive a 15% discount.

Thank Search Engine Strategies Toronto on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Rackspace

Rackspace is one of the world's largest hosting providers, but it's also competing in the cloud computing arena. Rackspace Cloud Hosting offers a suite of services which combines a scalable web and application hosting platform (Cloud Sites) with a cloud storage solution (Cloud Files) and on demand server instances (Cloud Servers). The addition of SliceHost a popular cloud computing and hosting provider and JungleDisk, a favorite online backup service that supports Cloud files, makes the Rackspace Cloud a powerful cloud hosting solution.

Explore Rackspace's hosting and cloud computing solutions.

Thank Rackspace on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Clickatell

Clickatell has over 22,000 customers utilizing our service from small mom & pop outfits to large Fortune 500 companies including Avaya, Oracle, Shell, Barclays, BP, CNN, BBC and more. Here's why you should trust us to mobilize your business: Our SMS gateway offers you wider coverage than any other SMS provider delivering messages to 600 network operators in 200 countries. Our gateway is not limited to SMS text messaging. You can also send a number of other message types including Ringtones, VCards, Binary, EMS, Unicode, Flash SMS, WAP Push, and more.

Clickatell offers you direct connectivity to its core SMS gateway platform via a number of APIs
(application programming interfaces) including; HTTP (internet post), SMPP, FTP, XML, SMTP
(email to SMS), SOAP and COM Object. Each API has full documentation with sample code where applicable. Learn more about Clickatell here.

Thank Clickatell on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Conduit

Conduit enables Web publishers to distribute their offerings both directly and through its global network of 220,000 publishers and their 100 million users. The Conduit platform is a powerful marketing tool that allows you to offer the best of your site through a custom App or Community Toolbar, send desktop alerts to your users, and much more.

The Conduit platform opens a new world of content sharing. Your site visitors can add your content right to their browser by clicking on a branded 2go button that you place on your site. You can also share your content in the Conduit Marketplace, where all the publishers and users in the Conduit network can grab it.

The platform has been adopted by major brands such as Fox News, iWin, Major League Baseball, TechCrunch, and Travelocity, as well as thousands of small and medium organizations in 120 countries.

If you would like to Conduit your website, go to www.conduit.com.

Thank Conduit on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

MyDomain.com

MyDomain is a leading ICANN-accredited provider of domain name registration and online business solutions. For over 10 years, MyDomain has offered low-cost domain names and free domain services including complete DNS management. Today, sub-$10 domains without the constant upsells you'll find at some competitors are the norm at MyDomain. MyDomain's complete range of solutions include Web hosting and VPS hosting, email, SSL Certificates and more.

Toopia

Nicolas Koenig is the developer who made our beautiful iPhone app a reality. He runs an iPhone development shop from the Netherlands called Toopia. Toopia also created the Thermometer iPhone app, which enables your iPhone or iPod touch to get the current temperature based on your location. The RWW app lets you read us on the go, follow us on Twitter, share stories on Facebook and Twitter, and browse at your leasure using Read it Later and Instapaper. Download the ReadWriteWeb iPhone application here.

Thank Toopia on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

The companies above pay our rents or mortgages and we appreciate it. We hope you'll stop by their sites and see what they've got to offer.

Have you got a smart company that could use some more visits by the sophisticated readers of a blog like ReadWriteWeb's? Drop us a line and let's talk.

Thanks to all our sponsors and our readers for your support!

Discuss

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ReadWriteStart Weekly Wrapup

Well would ya look at that? It's April already! The first quarter of 2010 is in the books and we are (hopefully) through all the April fools antics. In this week's ReadWriteStart Weekly Wrapup, we talk about how MBAs and entrepreneurship may not mix as well as they hope, how some of the best companies using freemium models have made them work, and how to brainstorm your next big idea by letting your creative beast come out and play. We also learned about a new freelance marketplace started by TechStars' Andrew Hyde, as well as a BizSpark-like program being created by IBM.

Sponsor

Harvard Grad on Why MBAs Stumble Off the Blocks

We've talked now and then about college programs that are making strides to provide students with entrepreneurial training, but the Harvard Business School (HBS) has so far not come up in our discussions. This might seem odd that one of the top businesses schools in the nation doesn't gather much attention from things like The Princeton Review's ranking of entrepreneurial programs, but one HBS grad may have an answer to that puzzle.

Freemium: Everyone's Doing It, But How?

The Freemium Summit, an event focused on discussing the ever popular business model and how new companies can best take advantage of it, was held last Friday in San Francisco, and since then, interesting stats and bits of information have been popping up on blogs and news sites. New business models have been a hot topic of discussion lately as we've debated both the benefits of freemium and it's possible replacement model, subscriptions. For any company taking its first steps into the freemium model, it takes careful consideration when deciding how to structure a freemium model, from how much to charge, to which services to charge for.

Looking for the Next Big Idea? Unleash the Beast!

So you want to be the next big shot entrepreneur to come up with an idea that will change the world, but can't seem to come up with that golden ticket of an idea? Well perhaps you need to look no further than the world of art for inspiration. While looking through Hacker News posts, I stumbled across an illustrated SlideShare presentation from San Francisco-based cartoonist Betsy Streeter that suggests ways artists can unleash their "creative beasts" hiding within - an interesting approach to creativity that aspiring entrepreneurs can also take advantage of.

TechStars' Andrew Hyde Launches Freelance Marketplace Startup

Back in January, a healthy comment discussion followed a post in which we looked at the topic of "spec work," or freelance work done for a client before an agreement of compensation is formed. One of the most vocal opponents to spec work is Andrew Hyde of TechStars and StartupWeekend fame, whose blunt opinions sparked a debate over how a marketplace for freelance work should properly function. Today, Hyde and a few friends are launching Pick, a marketplace and directory that connects clients with freelancers.

New IBM Strategy: Help Startups Capture More Business

IBM Global Entrep2.jpg Last summer IBM began asking their 120 venture capital partners what it would take to launch the world's most successful initiative for helping startups capture new business. They concluded that the initiative had to be offered to startups for free, with no upsell and regardless of VC status. Add to this IBM's preferred software, as well as access to IBM's social network of 8 million IT professionals and you have IBM's version of BizSpark.

So today is launch day and Drew Clark, Director of Strategy for IBM's Venture Capital Group defined Big Blue's new initiative for startups as a "small crisp set of capabilities that are what startups most want."

Discuss

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Cartoon: iPad: Content Reader Or Creative Platform?

2010.04.03.christen-thumbnail.png You're looking at what might be the first published cartoon created on an iPad. (Certainly the first one published on ReadWriteWeb.)

From the moment rumours about an Apple tablet got serious, I was eager to learn whether it could be a vehicle for actual cartooning. Much of the buzz wasn't promising, suggesting the device would be geared more to consumers than content creators.

Sponsor

Yet even a device as small as the iPhone has shown remarkable potential with the advent of software like Brushes, which produced artwork good enough - admittedly, thanks to a very talented artist - to become a New Yorker cover.

So when Steve Jobs made his Jan. 27 announcement, I was hoping against hope to hear that the device might be a worthy competitor to my beloved (but heavy and unwieldy) Cintiq. In retrospect, that was wildly unrealistic, but I was still disappointed not to hear words like "pressure-sensitive" or "stylus".

Yesterday, thanks to the heroic early-morning efforts of my wife, I got my hands on an iPad of my own. And after seeing what my daughter did with Doodle Buddy, I quickly installed Brushes and Autodesk's SketchBook Pro - two drawing apps for nominal grown-ups. After a little experimentation, I landed on SketchBook as my tool of choice for my first experimental cartoon.

Still, I had a problem: my big ol' meaty index finger, which is not only a terribly imprecise drawing tool but also a very effective obstacle to seeing just what it is I'm drawing. I quickly found myself hankering for the fine-grained control of my Cintiq's stylus.

That was when I remembered the Pogo Sketch... and discovered it was sold at the same Apple store that sold us our iPads.

The Sketch is a slender stylus ending, not in a thin nylon tip like a Wacom stylus, but a soft kind-of-rubbery material that does the same capacitive magic as your finger. And in conjunction with SketchBook Pro, it seemed to mimic pressure-sensitivity. (That's important to many cartoonists, who like the dynamic feel of a line that changes width as they draw.)

Most important, it allowed a degree of precision and control I just can't get with my finger, and it allowed me to draw the cartoon you see here. I can't say it's the same quality as cartoons I draw on the Cintiq or with pen and ink... but it's infinitely better than anything I'd achieved on the iPhone. And to me, at least, it holds the promise - as I get a little more practice - of becoming a truly portable sketching, inking and coloring solution. I can see it coming in handy for liveblogging, rough sketches or, on the road, an alternative to more desperate measures.

How about you - if you're planning on getting an iPad, will you be using it mainly to read, view and hear content, or will it be a creative outlet, too? And if so, what are you going to make?

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