It's the end of the year and so time for 'best of' and prediction posts, which are a lot of fun. Today I've been re-organizing my Firefox bookmarks, which made me reflect on which web apps and sites I've used the most this year. I encourage you all to add your own most used web apps in the comments. I've experimented with and tested many more, but in the final analysis you can't go past the usage metric.
In no particular order, but loosely categorized, my favorites of '07 were:
RSS Reader: Google Reader (with an ongoing interest in Bloglines Beta, Newsgator, and fav.or.it)
I used to be Bloglines' biggest fan. I still love what they're doing, especially since Eric Engleman came on board and re-energized development. But Google Reader has been my favourite RSS Reader throughout 2007, thanks to their continued innovation and experimentation. But the great thing about this space is that innovation is back: Google forced Bloglines' hand, but the Bloglines Beta is encouraging. Newsgator has never really stopped innovating and it's only the fact that I prefer a browser-based Reader that's prevented me from becoming a Newsgator fanatic.
One new RSS Reader to watch is fav.or.it, which is doing some innovative work including integrating comments. Also keep an eye on Streamy and FeedEachother (our review).
See 2007: The Year in RSS for more details on this market.
Start Page: Pageflakes, Netvibes
I use them both because they are fine products, well designed and always ahead of the curve in comparison with Google, Microsoft and Yahoo's similar offerings.
iGoogle does offer more gadgets, but the slick UI and constant developments in Pageflakes and Netvibes is what keeps those two at the top of my list of start pages.
Tech News: Techmeme, Original Signal
Techmeme is well known amongst tech bloggers and readers, quite simply because it's second to none in keeping up with tech news. Aggregating news on a single page, ordering it and having it constantly catching scoops as they happen - it's very hard to pull that off. Many have tried (TailRank, Megite, etc), but none have become daily addictions like Techmeme has for me.
Original Signal is another that I use a lot. It is a useful aggregation service of popular links, in a variety of categories. It's a very simple idea, but nicely implemented (with previews, ability to re-order, etc).
Online Music: last.fm
Without a doubt the best online music service, at least according to a comparison test we did earlier this year. I frequently use last.fm during the working week, and it never fails to throw up great new artists that I'd not heard before.
Pandora is also fine, but unfortunately it's inaccessible to me as I live outside the US. Grooveshark is one to keep an eye on (or an ear on!). Amie Street is another good, DRM-free source of online music (our review). See also ReadWriteWeb's Online Music Week for more recommendations.
Web Office: Google Docs, Zoho
I use both sets of Web Office suites on a regular basis, to collaborate with others on documents - or even by myself, simply because it is so practical to do word processing or spreadsheets in the browser (I don't have much call to do powerpoints). I even tried to use exclusively Web Office for a period in 2007, instead of Microsoft Office. This was because I'd gotten a new Mac and decided to see how long I'd last without MS Office. It lasted a few months, but in the end I got frustrated with little things like slow UI and lack of some of the advanced features in MS Office.
I'm sure that Web Office suites will compete better with MS Office over the coming years, but for now they are excellent complements to the desktop suites.
Project Mgmt: Basecamp
I simply can't live without this product now. We use it at ReadWriteWeb, for team messaging, collaboration on projects, To Do lists, and more. It's also one of the relatively rare web apps that I actually pay for (gasp! what a concept!).
Web Email: Gmail
I've spoken many times about how I love the 'web native' functionality of Gmail. It has performance issues at times (even going down for half a day early in the year), but overall it remains my number 1 email account.
Yahoo Mail is still the number 1 worldwide, and Windows Live Hotmail has millions of users too. I also tried Thunderbird during the year. But none was able to even come close to enticing me to ditch Gmail.
Social News: Digg, StumbleUpon
I use Digg a lot to monitor tech news - and of course it is an important traffic driver for tech blogs such as RWW. StumbleUpon is something I'm still getting used to, despite having been a user for a while now. By design it favors serindipity over tracking, which makes it different from most of the news services I use (digg, Techmeme, Google Reader, Pageflakes, etc). Still, it has an attraction to it - why else do I have the StumbleUpon toolbar on my browser? :-)
del.icio.us is something I use a lot too. Another one to keep an eye on is Sphinn, a small but influential social news site focused on search. And there is a new design coming for Propeller (ex-Netscape). Mixx is another getting rave reviews. So these may become regular visits for me in '08.
Reddit is another social news product worth mentioning, although I've always found its popular stories to be a bit on the frivolous side. Just my opinion.
Video, Photos: YouTube, Flickr
I'm not a huge user of online video, so YouTube still does the trick for me. I also like MyStrands (our review) and Current, the latter which released a stellar new design a couple of months ago. Joost is getting a lot of hype, but it wasn't something I found compelling in '07.
In photos, Flickr is another of those rare apps I pay for - which must mean it's good ;-)
Social Networks / Blogging: Facebook, MyBlogLog, Twitter, Tumblr
These are my most used social networking sites / micro-blogging services (I'm bundling them into the same category here, only because I personally use them all as social publishing tools).
Like a lot of people, for me Facebook started out 2007 as a relatively obscure US college student social network. However by the end of the year, everyone I know in the blogosphere was on it. But I have to also mention that MyBlogLog has become a very effective kind of social network for RWW readers - one of the reasons it survived the Great Widget Purge of the December RWW re-design.
LinkedIn is something I use often, if only to approve new business connections. Unfortunately Plaxo isn't doing it for me, even though I receive several connection requests each week now.
I'm a Twitter addict now (username is rww) and I've started to experiment using Tumblr as a personal blog.
So those are (some) of my most used web apps and sites. There are many others I use but didn't mention, in order to keep this post to a manageable length!
What were your favorite web sites and apps of '07? And what would you recommend that RWW readers use in 2008?
Image credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid
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The gmail is not published in this year.
Posted by: hetao li | December 26, 2007 1:41 AM
Richard didn't say it's published in 2007. He lists the most used apps in 2007, not published in 2007 :)
Posted by: thinlight | December 26, 2007 1:45 AM
Hetao, All but like two or three of those sites are not new to 2007...
Posted by: Ryan B | December 26, 2007 1:49 AM
Disappointingly unoriginal list. Well I guess that might mean I'm not missing anything...
And I've tried but I still can't imagine why anyone would need both a start page AND a feed reader. Surely feeds are the point of start pages..? Try using the tabs.
Posted by: Rollo | December 26, 2007 2:06 AM
Yes, to clarify -- these aren't apps or sites that necessarily started in 2007. Many are actually not new and quite standard, as Rollo (#4) says. What can I say, these are the apps/sites I used the most this year.
That's why I asked for your suggestions though, so I can find out what I could be using instead of (or in addition to) the above list. Please call out your faves...
Posted by: Richard MacManus
|
December 26, 2007 2:17 AM
Thanks Richard for the clarification. And my point wasn't a criticism: you make good choices.
My recommendation is Feed43.com. I've plugged them already in another RWW post, but I'll do it again here because they're worth it. With this tool you can create feeds from feedless pages which are updated regularly, providing the content is predictable. Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, and it's simple enough to use. A significant proportion of my most important feeds were created out of nothing using this site. I now use bookmarks only for archiving.
Posted by: Rollo | December 26, 2007 2:51 AM
ha, organizing firefox bookmarks, man i hate those things.... why does the dang window close as soon as i click something?
organizing those suckers is fr worse than any household cleaning job... imagine doing the dishes and the water goes off every time your hand leaves the tap....
but nice list, thanks
Posted by: gregory | December 26, 2007 6:08 AM
The link to basecamp is actually basecamphq.com not basecamp.com
Posted by: Jamal | December 26, 2007 6:20 AM
I'd chose http://www.widgetplus.com , even though I designed it myself so I'm partial, simply because it's the same as YouOS was, only it has more apps and it's actually more fun.
Posted by: Mikael Bergkvist | December 26, 2007 6:58 AM
Thanks for your thoughts.
Another RSS client about to be launched into beta that looks very interesting is http://www.assetbar.co.uk
(It's far too clever for me to have developed.)
:-)
Posted by: The Opinionated Normob | December 26, 2007 8:01 AM
I am such a netnewswire junkie, I don't know if I can even bring myself to explore other options that much! I do like the idea of a desktop reader, so I can work through content when I am offline (i.e. on a bus). I am a little curious about fav.or.it.. I guess I'll give 'er a look. Thanks for the list!
Posted by: Greg J. Smith
|
December 26, 2007 8:38 AM
I have been using http://www.blogcatalog.com
Posted by: Roxy | December 26, 2007 9:15 AM
I liked this list - some people complained that it was un-original, but to me it is a useful list of where critical mass is building. I've always found Richard to represent more of the mainstream (albeit with a techie edge) web user than other sites like TechCrunch (which I also enjoy).
I guess it also helps that my own list was fairly similar, so I found myself agreeing a lot. Twitter is amazing and I think there is going to be a lot of innovation in this space in 2008. I'd like to see more innovation in the web analytics space. I don't for a minute think Google Analytics has it nailed (although it's very nice).
May I also add my own project (I use it for my start page): http://www.boompaste.com
It is available now in early preview on what amounts to a QA server but I've received quite a few positive comments about it. Users of PopUrls (which obviously, heavily influenced the first version) and OriginalSignal may consider this an alternative. I will be working on it full time in 2008 and have a lot of exciting features planned. Any feedback / requests are always welcome.
Posted by: Ray Grieselhuber | December 26, 2007 9:52 AM
Tech News Site: http://www.tfot.info
Posted by: barak | December 26, 2007 12:58 PM
Fixed the Basecamp URL!
Posted by: Richard MacManus | December 26, 2007 3:05 PM
yes, unoriginal list. unsure they are the 'top' apps/sites, but they are certainly the 'popular' apps/sites.
I have used Gliffy a fair bit this year to make great looking diagrams.
Google Maps is a suprising omission off your list. It is wildly popular (and useful!), especially with all of the mashups that use the API.
Wikipedia is the other hugely useful site that I would add to your ilst.
Posted by: Robert | December 26, 2007 8:10 PM
"What were your favorite web sites and apps of '07? And what would you recommend that RWW readers use in 2008?"
It will be nice for folks who need to reflect public interest to use more popular platforms - platforms that are used by most corporations and folks that matter.
Heard about a popular blogger on tech topics who use only Mac. Time some of you graduated out of Firefox "HTML renderer" software.
IE 7.0 for 2008.
Posted by: Joseph Pally | December 26, 2007 9:00 PM
Online Alarm Clock: http://onlineclock.net
Posted by: Bob | December 26, 2007 10:01 PM
www.gceal.info
Posted by: ddd | December 27, 2007 12:21 AM
Please take a minute to see the new PSS [Personal Semantic Syndicator] a new concept [semantic analysis] for aggregating RSS. Its automatic [you don't need to collect nothing] it's totally personal. It's about to be launched into beta, but you can register.
http://www.mavinit.com
Also there is a blog there
http://www.mavinit.com/blog
Please enjoy
Posted by: Dr. Alon | December 27, 2007 1:42 AM
Check out Sosius.com for one application that can do all of the above. I've used it for a while and find their support by and far the best on the net.
Posted by: Paul | December 27, 2007 2:16 AM
hey for those of you who like digg&co check out 19min.com - a very cool concept
Posted by: Peter | December 27, 2007 4:26 AM
In my opinion, Zoho's functionality and breadth of applications (14) beat GoogleDocs hands down. Are there any other decent - FREE - competitors out there? Go Zoho!
Where does Microsoft's acquisition of Facebook leave those of us trying to shake that Microsoft monkey off our backs?
Finally, what about Opera browser, perhaps as a "loser" in Web 2.0 for 2007? For various reasons (e.g., market share and standards) many Web 2.0 applications simply don't support Opera, which makes it difficult if not impossible to use.
Posted by: Brian Clouse | December 27, 2007 4:33 AM
http://www.netvibes.com = greader+pageflakes+facebook and http://www.wikio.com = greader+pageflakes+techmeme and http://www.zoho.com = greader+googledocs+basecamp etc...
Posted by: Richard W | December 27, 2007 12:08 PM
We put together a list of top web apps in Russia on http://blog.quintura.com
Posted by: Yakov | December 28, 2007 1:32 AM
It's always interesting to read forecasts in the end of the year. It's even more interesting to see if any of them turned true. Web 2.0 is developing so rapidly, that it can be really hard to predict. What I do agree with is that Google will become even bigger with new apps. I'm not sure about Basecamp though... They don't know how to treat their customers. You just can check out their user-forum to make sure. So my guess here would be that they probably will yield to other apps, like Wrike and others.
Posted by: Jotty Lot | December 28, 2007 4:34 AM
I would suggest Orkut for social networking to all. Its a wonderful web app which I use in a daily basis.
Posted by: Veerasundar | December 29, 2007 3:07 AM
Great list man. I also like the way Netvibes does, but I'll stick with Google, I use almost all of them. Thanks
Posted by: nXqd | December 29, 2007 5:13 PM
I love using FireAnt for my desktop RSS aggregator.
Posted by: Custom PeelAwayAds | December 30, 2007 9:33 PM
This is a great list. Some people might say, well, well, this is not new. But there are a lot of web 2.0s, more and more me2. Me 2 is OK, if the me 2.0 can offer more than just me 2. Now I feel UI is the key. What I wish is the integration of social network facebook ( facebook has good bookmark feature), personal home page: Netvibes, or igoogle, social bookmark(stumpleupon, digg and delicious, personal publishing wordpress.
Posted by: Norman | January 2, 2008 8:51 AM
I am extremely biased, but I use http://www.pelotonics.com on a daily basis. I created it as an alternative to Base Camp's soup nazi atmosphere. Believe it or not, the users of web apps should drive the development at least to a degree!
Troy Malone
Chief Evangelist
http://www.pelotonics.com
Posted by: Troy Malone | January 3, 2008 12:01 AM