2007 was an eventful year in Web Technology, with the rise of Facebook, some frenzied acquisitions from the likes of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, and of course the iPhone. To round out the year (and put an end to the December lists!) here is a look at what we think were the 10 biggest Web tech stories of the year. They're ordered in terms of technology impact and innovation - however it's a subjective list, so let us know in the comments what you think should be in there.
This post doubles as the final Weekly Wrapup of 2007 -- it's been a great year and all the best everyone for 2008! Here's looking forward to more Web innovation and startup success in '08!
On January 9, 2007 Steve Jobs announced at Macworld "three revolutionary new products": an iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator. But turned out it was all one device: the fabled iPhone. This is our number 1, because it finally made the Mobile Web real for the influential US market (and the geeks who bought it in America, then took it overseas and unlocked it! cough).
2. Facebook Announces Platform
Much has already been written about this announcement on May 24, but suffice to say that it ushered in a new era for social networks - where outside companies could deploy advanced functionality inside the Facebook site.
3. Google Acquires DoubleClick for $3.1B
On April 13 Google acquired online advertising company DoubleClick, which set off a frenzy of acquisitions in this space - notably Microsoft's $6B purchase of aQuantive. The Google/DoubleClick deal confirmed that online advertising was in a bubble period.
4. Google Announces OpenSocial
At the end of October Google launched OpenSocial, a set of common APIs for building social applications across the web, in a bid to cut off Facebook's momentum with third party developers. Perhaps the biggest part of this news was the world's largest SNS MySpace joining OpenSocial the day after.
5. Amazon Launches Kindle eReader
Despite mixed reviews of this e-Reader device with internet connectivity from Amazon, the Kindle promises to shake up the e-commerce giant's core business model - by delivering books electronically instead of the familiar brown box.
On July 23, eight Democratic presidential hopefuls took the stage in South Carolina -- a crucial early primary state -- for a debate sponsored by CNN and YouTube in which all of the questions were submitted by users of YouTube. The Republicans got their chance in September. In the same vein, 2007 also saw the MySpace/MTV Candidate Forums and the rise of web 2.0 tools in politics.
On Nov 5, Google announced an open-source mobile operating system called Android. This could significantly change the way that Mobile Web applications are developed.
8. Steve Jobs' open letter against DRM
On Feb 6, Apple CEO Steve Jobs posted his Thoughts on Music in the 'Hot News' section of the Apple website. In it he outlined why DRM should be abolished by record companies. And Jobs' pleas seemed to be heard by the record industry, with first EMI and then later Universal and Warner on AmazonMP3 ditching DRM.
Late this year Facebook announced a new advertising system that used retail data collected from its users. But after howls of privacy protests, Facebook had to back off some and make the system opt-in. It's also worth mentioning here another Facebook story that just missed this list: in October Microsoft invested in Facebook at a $15b valuation.
10. Adobe AIR
On June 10, Adobe officially unveiled Adobe Integrated Runtime, or Adobe AIR for short. Formally called Adobe Apollo, it is a cross-operating runtime developed by Adobe that allows developers to create Rich Internet Applications for the desktop. It was a close call between this and Google Gears (the offline browser plug-in), or Microsoft's Silverlight (a Flash-like plug-in) - both of which were also launched in '07.
What have we missed? What were your top Web tech stories of 2007?
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Top 10 Web Tech Stories of 2007.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.readwriteweb.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/3029
As the Iowa Caucus officially kicks off the voting for the White House in 2008, Media Bullseye examines the online reaction to presidential candidates' engagement in social media. Will the support of the online favorites be reflected in the voting booth? Read More
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all Read/WriteWeb posts
Nice and useful information (Y)
Posted by: Faheem Shahzad | December 31, 2007 2:48 AMIt will be really interesting to see how open social works out over the coming year. I don't think I saw it mentioned in the predictions for 2008 but this may take off and enable some people to create some interesting web apps. Its taken Amazon's web api a couple of years to start taking off but I've noticed quite a few people are starting to use their apis this past year.
Google may do a little better in this area and it will be interesting to see if they can captilize on this move.
Posted by: Bruce | December 31, 2007 4:17 AMToo much Google in this list. Both OpenSocial and Android are vaporware.
Posted by: J.J. | December 31, 2007 4:21 AMEveryone's going to have his/her own opinion, but your list is spont on with many of the products. The iPhone and App platform announcement by Facebook are definitely in the right slots.
One thing I think has flown under the radar the past couple of months, but will fly high in '08, is the lowered threshhold for live streaming, especially via cell phones (Qik.com). I think a big story next year will be the explosion of the 'mobile social revolution', with cell and video camera live broadcasting at the edge of the wave. Imagine all the events that people will be broadcasting, like parades, high school football games, event reporting, graduation ceremonies, business events (author book signings), etc.
Posted by: Jeff Crites | December 31, 2007 5:33 AMI think your comparison of Adobe AIR to google gears or silverlight is not correct since both of these are web only technologies while AIR lets you write applications that work on both desktop and web. Silverlight should be compared to flex, not AIR. But a great summary overall!
Posted by: liveweb | December 31, 2007 7:28 AMYouTube carrying presidential debates.
Although this is tech/political - this symbolized a complete change in the balance of power of social networks verses traditional media outlets that dominated since the very beginnings.
Look at how Google was able to get many candidates to visits them and answer questions on video, Hilary Clinton posted questions on Yahoo Groups, also, how many candidates have MySpace accounts?
Even in the last election, 4 years ago, their online activities were just limited to having campaign Website.
Posted by: Search◊ Engines Web | December 31, 2007 9:39 AMCame across your site doing a search for Android news. Great stuff here! You might like AndroidGuys.com if you are interested in Google Android.
Posted by: AndroidGuys | December 31, 2007 11:03 AMThanks for the list. One thing that bothers me is the inclusion of the OpenSocial story. Most web devs will tell you that the announcement was much too premature. Google's PR team would have you think otherwise though, with the whole fireside chat thing. If Google wants OpenSocial to be a success they need to put some real world development time behind it.
Posted by: Shannon C. | January 1, 2008 10:24 AMYahoo! Pipes is much more significant than the Google vaporware you cite.
Posted by: WineMad | January 1, 2008 7:17 PMMe thinks "cloud compute" (Amazon EC2, IBM, Google et al) is worth a mention along with SaaS startups getting a jump on the big boys. Expect muscle-flexing from these boys in 2008!
Posted by: Alain Yap | January 1, 2008 9:33 PM