Richard MacManus

I’ve just launched Agentic Web News: market signals, interviews and analysis on the next phase of the web. The debut issue covers agentic commerce, AI search/GEO/AEO, and production AI apps becoming more agent-shaped. Read + subscribe: agenticweb.news/welcome-to-age…

Check out the latest article in my LinkedIn newsletter -> Field notes from the agentic web: Google, Parallel and the market taking shape linkedin.com/pulse/field-no…

Seeing the new Modern Web Guidance from Google reminds me of my pre-ReadWriteWeb blog, called... Modern Web :) #GoogleIO

I'm excited to share 15 updates from Google I/O 2026. We have updates across the agentic web, new capabilities and some great tools for developers. developer.chrome.com/blog/chrome-at… If you are IO, come and talk to me and the team in the Chrome area.

The agentic web is becoming a business issue. AI agents are changing how companies are discovered, understood and acted upon online. My new post: why this matters for business leaders, product teams, publishers and developers. ricmac.org/2026/05/13/why…

In the old days, we used to call this the “World Wide Web” ;)

What is the agentic web? Read web → Read/write web → Platform web → Agentic web I’ve published a new post defining the term, with historical context and analysis of why websites still matter in the AI era. ricmac.org/2026/05/08/wha…

AX was the new DX. Now it’s becoming the new UX. In my latest post, I explore how "agent experience" has morphed beyond "developer experience" and become a branch of "user experience". ricmac.org/2026/05/05/age… #AgenticWeb

The Museum of the Human Web: "a hybrid physical and digital museum celebrating the history of the human-built web." museum.parallel.ai Very cool. @p0 @paraga can I persuade you to sponsor my internet history website cybercultural.com ? A one-man web passion project.

This is a great primer from @ricmac He also will do an audit/consult - on how to improve the digital experience to cater to agents. ricmac.org/agentic-web-pl…

New post -> Agentic web patterns: what Web 2.0 taught me From my early Web 2.0 days working on “design patterns” to today’s emerging patterns for AI on websites. Patterns help turn abstract trends into things we can actually build. ricmac.org/2026/04/28/age…

AI isn’t replacing websites, but it is changing how they’re used. I now work as an agentic web consultant, focused on how AI systems interact with websites. I’ve put together a 36-page playbook on how to add AI to a website: ricmac.org/agentic-web-pl…

Remember when we thought Twitter was the key to democracy? 😂 It's March 2010 and the Paley Center hosts an event in NYC starring Chinese artist and activist @aiww, Twitter CEO @jack, and your humble RWW editor. We're discussing the future of democracy. cybercultural.com/p/046-ai-weiwe…

This is a key passage, and maybe the start of Web 2.0 for real. I surmise that the Google IPO, which took place in August 2004 — in-between Oscon and the Web 2.0 Conference — was the catalyst for a shift in emphasis, from "Napsterizing the web" to commercializing it instead.

In this installment of my book 'Bubble Blog: From Outsider to Insider in Silicon Valley's Web 2.0 Revolution', I tune into the 2004 Web 2.0 Conference and learn about data sharecroppers. Meanwhile, I conduct my first major interview as a tech blogger. cybercultural.com/p/the-first-we…

The latest installment of my new book, "Bubble Blog: From Outsider to Insider in Silicon Valley's Web 2.0 Revolution." It's 2004 and I'm a member of the blogosphere. This is pre-Web 2.0, but with new "social software" sites like Flickr, it's heating up. cybercultural.com/p/the-early-ye…

Here's the introductory chapter of my new Web 2.0 memoir and history book, Bubble Blog. It sets the scene with my first trip to Silicon Valley in 2005, revisits the "Web 2.0 meme map", and describes my first (and only) interaction with Marc Andreessen. cybercultural.com/p/introduction…

Added a roadmap (table of contents) for my new book; I got the idea from @stevesi's substack. The first post of the serialization of my memoir — the introductory chapter — will go out later today, so do subscribe if you haven't already! cybercultural.com/p/roadmap-bubb…

I'm pleased to announce my new book, a memoir to be serialized on Substack. It's called "Bubble Blog: From Outsider to Insider in Silicon Valley's Web 2.0 Revolution". It chronicles the rise of the modern internet during the first decade of this century. cybercultural.com/p/bubble-blog-…

The big social media questions: 1. When will Threads federate? 2. When will Bluesky open up? 3. When will Mastodon get a decent UX? 4. When will the AI tech crowd abandon X? 5. When will the US government ban TikTok? Which will happen first?