Gregory Ferenstein says, “When it comes to optimizing traffic to your website, plenty of reports would have you believe that social media is the only field worth plowing. But a new Adobe study shows that Google searches remain a dominant force—so much so, that even small tweaks to its algorithm can cause immediate and significant changes in Web traffic. The company has a history of intentionally punishing or rewarding websites, based on whether they align with its vision or not. Most recently, it decided to lower rankings for websites that weren’t mobile-optimized, such as those displaying... [...]

David Nield says, “Facebook has announced changes to its iOS app that let users take more control over their News Feed, the central stream of information around which the rest of the service is built. The same changes are coming to Android and desktop Web in the coming weeks. The move is notable because of the way Facebook has relied on smart algorithms since the earliest days of the News Feed to work out what users are most interested in: who they interact with most, what kinds of content they skip past, the popularity of posts with mutual friends, and other factors are all taken into account. This... [...]

Owen Thomas says, “When I dropped in last month on David Ulevitch, the CEO of OpenDNS, he was cheerily bounding around the rapidly expanding home base of his Internet security empire in San Francisco’s SoMa district. He’d taken over the other side of the building where OpenDNS is headquartered. Now Cisco, an investor in OpenDNS since last year, is acquiring the fast-growing company for $635 million in cash and stock. The reasons are simple and obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention to the Internet lately: Networks are porous. Firewalls are irrelevant. Work happens everywhere.... [...]

ReadWrite team says, “The Internet of Things (IoT) is a goldmine waiting to happen, says a new report from management consulting firm McKinsey & Co.. However, according to its findings, we may be waiting a long time. The tech industry seems to have reached full lather over this trend, with companies big and small rushing in to connect all manner of gadgets, home appliances, even cars and other technologies, to the each other and the Internet. The reason is obvious: McKinsey points to $4 trillion to $11 trillion of positive economic impact each year by 2025. But its report also highlights... [...]

Brian P. Rubin says, “Microsoft hit gamers with a blizzard of announcements Monday at E3, the industry’s big annual conference. You’ll likely hear buzz about new, exclusive Halo, Forza, and Tomb Raider games. But one announcement blew Microsoft’s fans away: On stage, the company showed off a new demo of what it’ll be like to play Minecraft on the HoloLensaugmented-reality headset“. Microsoft Missed Mobile, So Now It Wants To Own VR ReadWrite  [...]

Yael Grauer says, “Facebook has demonstrated as well as any company could that sometimes the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. Take the news that Facebook is now supporting strong encryption in the emails it sends. Yes, this from the company that broadcasts user location data within a meter in Facebook Messenger and requires the use of real names. Facebook now lets  users to add OpenPGP public keys to their profile, and to sign up for encrypted Facebook notifications. PGP, or Pretty Good Privacy, is a program that lets people encrypt and decrypt emails, and allows users... [...]

Owen Thomas says, “Observers—ReadWrite included—have long expected Pinterest to get into the e-commerce business directly, instead of just driving traffic to retailers’ websites. At an event at Pinterest headquarters in San Francisco, CEO Ben Silbermann revealed that blue “Buy It” buttons would soon appear on the site, next to the site’s familiar red “Pin It” buttons. This wasn’t a surprise to me—because minutes before his announcement, I happened to read a copy of a speaker’s script left lying on the floor before an event staffer whisked... [...]

Matt Assay says, “Your mobile strategy is all wrong. Perhaps “all” is too strong a word. If you even have one, you’re already ahead of the game. Less than a third of North American companies have a mobile strategy that goes out at least 12 months, according to a new Econsultancy/Adobe survey. But for many of those organizations, that strategy often begins and ends with “fitting our website into a mobile app,” or goes only a few steps further, showing some key functionality within a mobile app. Neither is enough“. Got A Mobile Strategy? You’re Probably... [...]

Brian P. Rubin says, “Pebble founder and CEO Eric Migicovsky has a message for tech giants like Apple and Google: Keep your platforms open unless you want to crush innovation and disserve your customers. Here’s what Migicovsky said at Wearable World Congress, a San Francisco conference put on by ReadWrite’s parent company: We’re building on top of other people’s platforms. In this world where everything is interconnected, and you see devices like Fitbit, Jawbone, Nest and other connected devices that are using the Android, using the iOS platforms, it’s kind of a time for these... [...]

Matt Asay says, “There is no free lunch, goes the saying. As it turns out, there is no free Internet, either. Facebook, to its credit, launched Internet.org to try to bring free Internet access to people in emerging economies who may not otherwise be able to afford it. Along the way, the company has made all sorts of compromises to ensure it can afford to offer the service, as ReadWrite reports. But one massive compromise has nothing to do with cost, and everything to do with Facebook’s business model: Users get Internet access in exchange for their personal data, more data than even Western... [...]