That's all set to change within three years, according to a growing chorus of analysts. The latest to vouch for the impending growth of Windows Phone is iSuppli, who last week predicted that the platform could outperform Apple's iOS by 2015.

Still, some have balked at the claim that Windows Phone could rise to challenge iOS anytime so soon, given Apple's propensity to upgrade its mobile hardware every year, with even modest iterations yielding surprisingly successful results. What do you think?

When my colleague David Strom pointed it out to us here at ReadWriteWeb, I made one of my artificially erudite remarks: I wonder how many RWW readers, I said, would consider CNBC passé?

Two of the larger factors that inspired me to seek the profession I'm in now are, curiously and perhaps ironically, television and conferences. I grew up admiring - and trying to emulate - a man named David Brinkley, who during the 1960s read the news during the dinner hour for NBC, at a time when TV news was electronic news. My interest in computer technology derived partly because I wanted to make my own games, but also from my sincere belief that interactive journalism would supplant broadcast journalism. For that reason, I became attracted to, and a frequent attendee of, computer and electronics conferences, CES among them. (Though my wife used to be my editor, I met her in person at COMDEX.)

There is a plausible argument that, at a time when most viewers have already heard about each story, a broadcast news program has become somewhat antiquated. And there is an equally plausible argument that an annual electronics conference at any one city, at a time when most retailers and suppliers and manufacturers do business with one another electronically on a daily basis, has become quaint, old-fashioned, and maybe even a waste of money.

But I'm not certain the Internet has actually replaced either one as a venue. There is no "Huntley-Brinkley Report" for the Web, no single authority for reliable news. And while that does not bother everyone, it bothers me because it means most folks' view of the world is hodgepodge, aggregated, assembled from multiple accounts, with varying levels of accuracy and dependability. When I read "Michael Jackson is Dead," I did not believe it; and when I read "Jon Bon Jovi is Dead," I questioned myself as to why I should not believe it.

And there is no CES for the Web, although I know the CEA has tried. The Web cannot replicate the directness, the urgency, and yes, the excitement of bringing every major player together into the same square mile.

So I'm curious to learn your thoughts, and here is where I'll point out the handy little comments section at the end: If history truly is outmoding all sense of authority, regality, pomposity, and prominence from these two once-dominant sources of information, then which one leaves our midst first?

Spotify's free accounts are normally restricted to ten listening hours per month. If you really, truly love a particular song, you'll only be able to stream it five times in a given month. These caps will come on top of the usual limitations of free accounts: You have to listen to advertisements and there's no mobile access.

The question of whether users will convert to paying customers is crucial to the viability of Spotify's business model. The company has deals in place with all of the major music labels and many independent ones, but those relationships are not necessarily set in stone, nor did they come about easily. Its U.S. launch was delayed due to extended negotiations with the labels. More recently, concerns have been raised over the relatively small payout seen by artists, a few of which have opted to keep their new releases off of Spotify.

There could be several books written about the battle for Flash against mobile. "Steve Jobs' Last Laugh" could probably be finished in time for the holiday shopping season. "How To Kill Flash For Dummies" would be an enlightening title as well. It is a bittersweet day for many. We want to know: how are you reacting to the passing of Flash for mobile? Take the poll below.

The fall of one platform is often correlated to the rise of another. Look at Android vs. Blackberry or Chrome vs. Firefox, Google vs. Yahoo, Internet Explorer vs. Netscape. The death of mobile Flash is seen as the ultimate validation of HTML5. The evolution of this battle on mobile will take place with native apps vs. Web apps though there is no clear indication yet what will ultimately be the winner in that sweepstakes.

Adobe will now focus on HTML5 development and tools that can be used to help developers. The company's recent acquisition of PhoneGap maker Nitobi will help ease the pain in Adobe's mobile development cycles and should not be overlooked as a major factor in this decision to kill mobile Flash.

The pages of ReadWriteWeb have been filled with Flash news for the last four years. Like so many things in the last decade, the argument was created by our generation's largest tech luminary, Steve Jobs. A lot of pundits and tech insiders took Jobs' words for gospel and that fueled the bashing of Flash that has led to this point. On the other hand, there have been a lot of hardworking people (with a lot of money) that have tried to fix the problems Flash had on mobile devices for the last several years. This cannot be a good day for them as something they have been working on for years has been obsoleted overnight.

Take a look at some of the highlights of our Flash coverage from the last couple of years and take the poll below to let us know how you feel.

ReadWriteWeb's Notable Flash Coverage:

• Steve Jobs Wins: Adobe to Give Up Mobile Flash for HTML5
• Steve Jobs Speaks: Why We Don't Allow Flash on iPhones and iPads
• On Mobile Flash, Apple Stands Alone
• Does HTML5 Really Beat Flash? The Surprising Results of New Tests
• EU May Force Flash Onto Apple Products
• Adobe Releases Flash to HTML5 Conversion Tool
• HTML5 Scores a Point as SlideShare Ditches Flash Entirely
• Adobe: Flash is an Exception to Windows 8's 'Plug-in Free' Rule
• Adobe Flash Player 10.2 Ready For Honeycomb; Honeycomb Not Ready For Anything
• Farewell Flash? Adobe Launches HTML5 Web Animations Tool "Adobe Edge"
• Google Swiffy Converts Flash to HTML5
• B&N's Nook Color Gets Apps, Flash & More in Major Update
• Flash Video Comes to the iPhone, iPad with Skyfire
• How to Install Flash on your iPhone (The Easy Way)
• Apple Approved: iSwifter Lets You Play Popular Flash Games on the iPad
• Worried About Flash on the iPad? Apple Tries to Ease Your Fears
• No Flash? No Worries: Majority of Online Video Now Available in HTML5
• YouTube: Flash Still Beats HTML5
• Flash Now Importable to HTML5 Canvas
• Death to Flash: 3 Great HTML 5 Demos
• Adobe Celebrates, But Will Flash Developers Return to Apple?
• Proof of Concept Brings Flash to the iPhone
• MobiUs Accelerates Mobile HTML5 Development, Aims to Kill Mobile Flash

One wants to make the battery power on devices we use to access the Web last longer. The second is a company that helps others navigate the world of Facebook advertising. The third is a stealthy provider of anti-malware services that models its Web traffic analysis software off of the workings of biological science. These three companies just got a boost to keep working to bring their technologies to market. As we often like to do in rounding up funding news, we'd like to ask in a poll: which of these companies intrigues you the most, readers?

Which of the following ten companies that announced funds raised today do you think are most likely to make it? To really make an impact on the web and the world? We've embedded a poll below and I'm very curious to see who gets the most votes. Below that poll I've also embedded another poll asking ReadWriteWeb readers whether a feature like this would be of interest if we ran it regularly. Let us know what you think!

We can't help but wonder if this announcement marks the end of an era or the beginning of a new one for the once-dominant social network, and we're looking to you, our readers, to find out.

Now, with Myspace bowing down and accepting that Facebook is the de facto login of choice, we have to wonder if the site has a chance at attracting the users it has lost to the other side.

What do you think? Will the Facebook integration bring you back to Myspace? Or have you moved on, never to look back? Let us know in our poll and in the comments.

So we'd like to know which social shopping products you used or liked the best in 2010. There are 12 options below. If one of your favorites is not listed, then select 'Other' and mention it in the comments. You may choose up to 3 options.

In 2007-08 startpages were viewed as the second coming of portals and some even thought they might be the next social networks. Now of course many people use Facebook or Twitter as their place to "start" on the Web. So what will become of the startpage - does it have a future? Let us know in our poll whether you still use a startpage product. We have some initial survey results and further analysis below.

What's Become of Startpages?

Startpages have undoubtedly faded in recent years, despite my positive outlook for them 4 years ago (although I also correctly predicted that the enterprise market would provide revenue opportunities). The main reason for the decline of startpages in the consumer market is Facebook.

The main selling point of startpage was always the widgets, the mini web applications that users could add to their dashboards. Over the past couple of years, Facebook has become far and away the largest platform for mini web apps. Nearly every major web product these days has a Facebook Application version. A startpage widget is now often a second thought, if considered at all, for online businesses.

Netvibes is probably the most well-known startpage, outside of the big companies. As early as March last year, we were suggesting that Netvibes was struggling. This was vigorously denied at the time by Netvibes CEO Freddy Mini. He told ReadWriteWeb that while the startpage paradigm hasn't taken off beyond the early adopter set, it remains useful as a driver for sales of the company's new enterprise and "branded portal" offerings.

Netvibes still appears to be beavering away at the consumer market. For example, last month it launched an iPad-Friendly custom RSS Reader and other mobile products.

ReadWriteWeb Community on Startpages

We asked our community via Twitter: do you still use a startpage? Here's a representative sample of the replies (you can see them all via Twitoaster):

@shilpandya: "I have so much great content feeding to my iGoogle pg.Wish I checked it more often.Always so many browser windows already open though."

@CTdigital: "Spent ages playing with my iGoogle, however since chrome, just have my favorites pinned to browser on open and then search from url bar"

@RCMBartley: "Tried Netvibes and iGoogle. Start pages have never been able to keep my attention. Prefer Safari's opening page of 12 fav sites. Useful"

@Devindra: "Used Netvibes for years, but now I just stick with the Chrome startup screen"

@grandison: "Twitter = start page killer. Curated crowd sourced data eliminated the need for blocks of feeds. I would not have called it 2 years ago"

@tobiaspeggs: "igoogle is my window on the world, my realtime dashboard of everything I need to keep an eye on. Don't know what I'd do without it."

@zzramesses: "I def still use netvibes to start my day. I can get a quick overview of the day's happenings"

@andrewserff: "yes, I still use Netvibes although less than I used to because of twitter. But I like the pictures and interesting post pop out faster"

@donlbe: "i use iGoogle. it's about efficient agg of social nets, data (finance, weather, etc.) and feeds..."

@aldozenzo: "Only on mobile. On desktop, no. On mobile, it's usually "consume" mode, and on desktop, "work" mode."

It seems that many of our readers now use Google's Chrome browser, Twitter and Google search as a replacement for startpages. However, there was still solid support for Netvibes and iGoogle in particular. A few people mentioned Yahoo! too.

Participate in the poll to have your say - and let us know in the comments your thoughts on the startpage market.

Second was the Nexus One, an iPhone challenger that runs Google's mobile OS, Android. This shows another significant trend of 2010: the increasing market penetration of Android as a smart phone platform competing with the iPhone. Full poll results below...

What all four of the top place getters have in common is that they're all mobile technologies. It's perhaps arguable that the iPad is a mobile device, however it has been mostly used away from people's desks.

The poll listed 10 products or platforms and you were asked to select up to 3. Below is a screenshot of how the poll finished up. Let us know in the comments what other trends you gleaned from these results.

See also: 5 Key Trends of 2010: Half-Year Report for The Web

We'd now like to poll you on which of these - or other - products or platforms has impressed you the most over 2010. You may cast up to 3 votes in the poll below.

As an attendee at SXSW, it seemed like Foursquare and Gowalla were the most used. Brightkite seemed to drop off the radar of SXSW attendees, but perhaps that was because Foursquare and Gowalla had the most press attention at that time. Whatever the case, it was an inconclusive result at SXSW and there was a sense that none of the 3 leading location-based mobile apps 'won' that battle. It's now a month later, so we thought we'd poll you again to see which - if any - of these apps you use regularly now.

See also:

• Two-Thirds of iPhone Users Now Use Location-Based Services at Least Once a Week
• Top 10 Mobile Trends of 2010, Part 2: Apps, Apps, Apps

Join us at the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit on May 7, in Mountain View, CA, to discuss location-based apps and other hot topics in Mobile. If you're in town for the Web 2.0 Expo that week, our Mobile Summit is the day after. We'd love to see you there! Register here.

This year, a new contender has appeared - Austin's native Gowalla. And Brightkite is still hanging on to the LBS community,

Which do you use now? And when your attention is at a premium during one of the year's most popular geek conferences, which app or apps will you use to collect badges, connect with friends, and find out where the party really is?

While many of us use the mobile version of the site and patiently wait for a native app for non-iPhone devices, Foursquare's been our go-to check-in service for quite some time. And their response to us on Twitter suggests they may see themselves as a comfortable incumbent at this point.

Both of the services we've mentioned also have special, built-in incentives for users at SXSW. Gowalla in particular has announced an interesting promotion. For their flagship "Tiki Room" event, the app will "be scattering hundreds of Tiki Room Digital VIP Passes around downtown Austin. The only way to get yours is to check in with Gowalla at other Austin venues and SXSW events."

Last year, Foursquare also had special badges for SXSW, such as "Panel Nerd", "Karaoke RV" and "Porky" (for BBQ lovers, in particular). They even made a custom badge for attendees of Digg's party and Diggnation live show.

And while Brightkite may not have the game mechanics and rewards of other apps, it does give us the ability to upload photos in addition to text when checking into various locations - a tool we've found very handy when screening new venues for ambience.

So, which app or apps will you be using during SXSW? Vote in the poll, and let us know the "why" of your choice in the comments.

Make your picks in the poll embedded below. You can cast up to 10 votes. If you don't see one of your favorites in the list, note it in the comments and we'll count that as a vote too.

The year's top 10 products, as selected by the RWW community, will be announced tomorrow. Here is the current top 10, in alphabetical order:

UPDATE: The poll is now closed, CLICK HERE TO SEE RESULTS.

Top 100 Web Products of 2009, Alphabetical

We will announce the final top 10, along with the full results, this Friday. After one day of voting, here is the top 10:

UPDATE: The poll is now closed, CLICK HERE TO SEE RESULTS.

Note: the poll is randomly ordered, but you can also view an alphabetical list below.

Top 100 Web Products of 2009, Alphabetical