09 December 2006

The most brilliant Web 2.0 things in 2006

About a year ago I started compiling my EVERYTHING 2.0 lists. Doing my earliest research, I got my best input from a few sources that presented their "Best Web 2.0 sites in 2005".
In the course of this year I've added little asterisk signs to the sites that struck me as brilliant - either conceptually, or businesswise, or technically, or graphically, or... well... otherwise.
Of course these assessments were totally subjective. Sometimes depending on my mood of the day, sometimes on some other whim, sometimes on the fact that the makers/entrepreneurs behind them are my customers and/or friends.
Furthermore, I didn't (and don't) have much time left to go back to web sites after assessing them the first time. I am aware that many of them - being in a state of perpetual beta - have been improved considerably, and might deserve one or more *** now. Some of these sites might even not exist anymore ;-!

So, please forgive me that the following list is only a dominantly subjective aggregate of all things that somehow struck me as brilliant. And please feel invited to comment on it.

37signals* - Basecamp, Backpack, Writeboard, Ta-da List - Software
A9** - Clustered search - Search
Ajaxian** - Ajax blog - About
Alexadex* - Buy & sell shares in sites - Game
Amazon* - Shop, sell, review & rank - Ecommerce
Ambientdevices* - Datacasting inc. interfaces - Data
Audioclipping* - Search AV (German) - Search
Backbase* - Ajax applications - Software
Bioteams* - Blog on team dynamics & virtual collaboration - About
Bix* - Create & vote for content, and win - Multimedia
Blinklife*** - Social email - Communicate
Chacha* - Get real time results with help of live guides - Search
Chatcreator* - Create your chat room instantly - Communicate
Chatsum* - Chat with & leave messages same-site-visitors - Communicate
Chickadvisor* - Get & share advise on chicks in your city - Community
Chuquet* - Find buzzes - Bookmark
Colr* - Play with color photos & publish results - Images
Cottonrape* - Shopping game - Ecommerce
Couchsurfing* - Home swapping & holiday dating - Economy
Craigslist* - Post & read classifieds - Ecommerce
Dapper** - API generator - Software
Delicious* - Social bookmarking - Bookmark
Democracy2.0* - Consumers/Citizens unite! - Economy
Desktoptwo* - Manage your desktop in a browser - OS
Digg* - Identify, rank & share interesting news - News
Dontclickit*** - Clickless interface - Design
Ebay* - Sell, rate & buy; auction - Ecommerce
Edoc* - Fashion ecommerce goes alternate reality game - Ecommerce
Emurse* - Create, share & send your permanent resume page in any format - Employment
ES3** - Social military training game - Game
Exalead** - Unified search technology - Search
Eyebeam*** - Bleeding edge R&D - About
Flashface* - Compose your Most Wanted portrait - Images
Flickr* - Manage & share your photos - Images
Flickrgraph** - Visualize your network on Flickr - Dbase
Fon*** - Share, buy, sell wi-fi connections - Wi-fi
Fotograb* - Participate in & create photo treasure hunts - Game
Fotologue* - Publish & share photos (beautiful Ajax interface) - Images
Froogle* - Local shopping search engine; Google Maps mash-up - Ecommerce
Gadabe* - RSS metasearch (relaunched as Tagjag) - Search
Genbeta* - 2.0 blog (Spanish) - About
Geovector*** - LBS services with a usable interface. - Geo
Goggles* - Flight simulator's map mash-up - Game
Gogofrog* - Create & share your 3D web page - Design
Google* - Search & adwords - Search
Googleearth* - Global maps - Geo
Goowy* - Personal portal (desktop & browser versions) - Portal
Greenleafmarket* - Buy or sell local products - Ecommerce
Hackoff*** - Book published as blog & podcast - Multimedia
Hellodeo* - Record & send your video message - Communicate
Hitchhikr* - Share knowledge & experiences on conferences - Knowledge
Hotdaddy* - Search engine aggregator - Search
Hullo* - Integrates soft, cell & landline phones - Communicate
Hypediss* - Hype or diss stories - Dig
Inkling* - Social delphi, exchange for futures - Game
Insolitus* - Upload & share all your files & docs - Multimedia
Interact10ways* - Interact with Getty images - Images
Internetaddressbook**~ - Find & be found, with all your 2.0 profiles - Identity
Itredux* - Concise categorized database of Office 2.0 companies - About
Kartoo** - Clustered, mapped search - Search
Kitbit* - Strives to emulate natural intelligence thru accumulated experience - R&D
Lastfm* - Profile your taste, share, personalize your radio - Audio
Lijit* - Social contextual search - Search
Liveplasma* - Search & find other things to your taste - Search
Livesearch* - Refine your search while you type - Search
Loki* - Search & navigate web & real life - Search
Lowlandsguide~** - Explore the lay of the Lowland Festival with this mobile app - GeoMajestic12* - Distributed search engine - Search
Mappedup~* - Map your feed sources geographically - RSS
MediaMax* - Store, manage & share media - Multimedia
Memetrics* - Optimize your marketing across media - Marketing
Mendix*~ - Semantic application development - Software
Milliondollarhomepage* - Buy pixels to finance study - Economy
Mobspray* - Create & share graffiti in places thru mobile2RFID - Game
Monitor110** - One-stop semantic financial research suite - Search
Mturk* - Complete simple tasks & get paid - Economy
Multi-touch* - Handy interface - Design
Musestorm*** - Metasearch in Flash (several interfaces) - Search
Mystickies* - Browse, search, sort & edit notes online - Office
Myvtc* - Share media & documents for generations to come - Community
N2yo* - Realtime satellite tracking - Geo
Naughtyamerica* - Multiplayer video sexgame - Game
Naughtyamerica* - Multiplayer video sexgame - Game
Netvibes***** - Personal portal - Portal
Newsletterarchive* - Store & share your newsletters - Communicate
Newsmap*** - Rank-interfaced news (who knows what happened to Hives?) - News
Odesk* - Work as or hire remote workforce - Employment
Pando* - Store & share data - Store
Pandora*** - Personalized radio - Audio
Perspectives** - Visualizes spatio-temporaly the places we inhabit - Dbase
Photosynth*** - Rebuild the world in photos - other users' and your own - Images
Pickstation* - Listen to & digg music tracks - Dig
Pickupgame* - Find people locally to play games - Community
Playdo* - Gaming community - Community
Plazes** - Claim & share your locations - Community
Plazesbadge* - Show where you are (e.g. on your blog) - Geo
Popist* - Social networking - Community
Postsecret* - Publish & share secrets - Community
Previewseek*** - Byebye Google? (Coming back soon) - Search
Printeranywhere*** - Use your friends' printers - Office
Programmableweb** - Web 2.0 reference website, main source on APIs and mash-ups - About
Programmermeetdesigner* - Partner matching for IT projects - Economy
Publishing2** - Web 2.0 from a publishing & marketing point of view - About
Pushy*~ - Personal portal; also mobile - Portal
Rapleaf* - Manage your reputation & rate your friends - Identity
Rateordate* - Crowd match, singles event maps, online dating - Date
Rebtel* - Call international at local rates - using your cell phone - Communicate
Retrievr* - Search images by sketching - Search
Riya* - Face recognition based photo search - Search
Rollyo* - Create search agents - Search
Rootvaults* - Store, manage & share knowledge online - Knowledge
Rrove* - Save & share places - Collaborate
Rubyonrails* - Web development framework - Software
Safemail* - Create an uncrawlable image of your email address - Software
Semapedia** - Add wikipedia tags to real world things - Tag
Sevenload*** - Upload & share photos & videos - Multimedia
Shoposphere* - Create & share pick lists - Ecommerce
Sitekreator* - Build, publish & host websites (Subm. By Brian Solis) - Software
Slide* - Create photo loops & share them on your website - Images
Slurlmaker* - Bookmark sites in Second Life - Bookmark
Socialcircles* - Visualizes relations in an email database - Dbase
Solutionwatch* - Reviews of 2.0 websites - About
Songbird* - Browse, download, manage & share all media - Browse
Speedtest* - Check your ISP's speed - Software
Spore*** - User generated gameplay & characters - Game
Spreadshirt* - Design, buy or sell your T's (Subm. by Andreas Milles) - Ecommerce
Squawklive* - Mashes up stock data & news, sends alerts - Finance
Stickam* - Multimedia communication tool - Communicate
Streamload* - Store & share your media - Multimedia
Swarmteams* - Solutions to set up & manage mobile One2- or Many2Many community communications - Software
Swarmthedotcom* - See how other people browse & chat (Firefox) - Communicate
Talkdiggeralpha* - Semantic tools to find, follow & join web conversations - Community
Technorati* - Find what people are saying - Search
The100lists* - Publish & share your lists - List
Theadcloud* - Create & tag classified listings - Marketing
Tiddlywiki* - Publish and share notes (Subm. by CFG) - Publish
Toptaggers* - Tag, rank & share links - Search
Tunefeed* - Share your music on any website - Audio
Uize** - Java API Library - Software
Wikibios* - Let your friends collaborate on your bio - Publish
Wikipedia* - Read & co-edit encyclopedia - Publish
Writeboard* - Write, share, revise & compare documents - Office
Xing*** - Community for entrepreneurs & professionals - Community
Yahoomaps* - Global & local maps & search mash-ups - Geo
Yubnub* - Search & share search commands - Search
Zoominfo* - Search persons; create your own page - Community

Recent additions:
Boxed* - Build calendars out of all sorts of online sources - http://30boxes.com/boxed - OfficeGabmail* - Record & send videomail - http://freegabmail.com/composer/ - Communicate
Grandcentral* - Get 1 phone number for all your calls - http://www.grandcentral.com/ - Communicate
Mypictr* - Create & publish your profile pic for social softwares - http://mypictr.com/ - Images
Nabaztag* - Get info & communicate thru wi-fi rabbit device - http://new.nabaztag.com/ -
Communicate
Rapidobject** - Create, print, sell & buy 3D objects - http://rapidobject.com/ - Personal manufacturing
Remotecontrolmail* - Go thru your snail mail digitally before you receive it - http://www.remotecontrolmail.com/ - VAS
Splice* - Mix, mash-up & share your music - http://www.splicemusic.com/ - Audio
Tapuxmobile* - Mobile fun & community content & apps - http://www.tapuzmobile.com/ - Software
Twerq* - Remember search results in tabs - http://www.twerq.com/ - Search
Zamzar* - Convert your files online - http://www.zamzar.com/ - Software

BTW
The Big Overall Winner of 2006, of course, is Netvibes. Don't you agree ;-?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, you forgot to list http://www.chegg.com . A free college classifieds website.

Anonymous said...

check out www.like.com, Riya's latest offering!

Anonymous said...

How about adding eSnips (www.esnips.com) to your list? It's a social content sharing site where you can upload any type of file and you get 1GB of storage free!

Anonymous said...

the mighty clipmarks will wipe the floor with most of the above.

Combining a sweet interface that allows to clip that one line,paragraph or whole article from the web that you know you'll need to read again.

Add to this an articulate community and you've pretty much got everything you need to make sense of the world.

 
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