Next week we'll publish Read/WriteWeb's annual Best Web Companies and Innovators post. Also coming next week is the 2007 Web Trends post (I'd hoped to do it this week, but it's now Saturday where I live and I'm exhausted!). Anyway I'd like to tap the minds of the R/WW community some more, before I write the Best Of post. So I'm looking for feedback in particular on Best Web LittleCo of 2006 and Most Promising Web Company/Innovator.
To give you an idea of what we're looking for, last year 37Signals was Best Web LittleCo and Memeorandum & Digg.com were Most Promising. The latter category is designed for companies or services that have burst onto the scene this year, but probably won't reach their potential until next year or in the near future. That has certainly been the case with Digg and (the re-named) Techmeme in 2006.
In 2004, R/WW named Ludicorp (the then independent company that created Flickr) as Best Web LittleCo, and Feedburner as Most Promising.
For Best Web LittleCo this year, already someone has suggested Meebo. I'd love to get more suggestions from the community on this - so please leave a comment. Try and think of startups or small companies that have had a particular impact this year - and why.
We've already gotten a great idea of who you think is best Bigco of 2006, via our poll earlier this week. The poll is still open, but as of now the results are overwhelmingly in favor of one company: Google. 55% of you think Google has been the most impressive BigCo this year. Followed by Apple on 15% and Amazon on 14%. Yahoo (last year's winner) and Microsoft have only 7% and 5% respectively! The big question when deciding the R/WW winner is the balance between bigco innovation and the impact it has on a mass market.
So what are your thoughts, especially on Best Web LittleCo for 2006 and most Promising Web Company/Innovator? Also let us know if you'd like us to do a category-by-category breakdown of the year's best Web products.
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for littleco - i'd nominate zoho. they've done a lot of great stuff this past year with their web office products.
Posted by: chris | December 15, 2006 2:08 PM
I'd like to nominate Obivious corp, not only for Twitter and Odeo but also for the initiative to buy back their company from the investors. This in a time where we're appraoching bubble times in terms of VC funding.
Posted by: Jonas | December 15, 2006 3:13 PM
MyBlogLog
Their contribution to the social networking aspect of blogs has been nothing short of phenomenal - especially given the short time period.
Cheers,
Aidan
Posted by: Aidan Henry | December 15, 2006 3:21 PM
zillow for littleco
Posted by: emad | December 15, 2006 3:54 PM
i nominate the moji intelligent messenger from mor(f) dynamics.
Posted by: robb | December 15, 2006 4:04 PM
Meebo would me my vote, given how much I use the service
Posted by: Deepak | December 15, 2006 4:19 PM
I agree, meebo and Writely.. Two web apps that I always use.. Writely is gone though..
Posted by: Emre Sokullu | December 15, 2006 4:50 PM
MyBlogLog! They're taking the social experience *outside of the domain walls*. As great as myspace.com/whatever is, the next step is the one being taken by MyBlogLog.
Posted by: Largo | December 15, 2006 4:50 PM
Looking back at the past winners I would say that digg and ludicorp were nice picks, while 37signals somehow got stuck. It's definitely interesting to see how the winners have developed over the past year(s)!
One of my picks for this year would be netvibes. it's the best (biggest) representative for a very essential and important trend (widgets).
I'm not sure about Meeboo. What's the big innovation there?
Anyway, my award for best web blog goes to R/WW, for delivering deep and interesting content. Thanks for that!
Posted by: David | December 15, 2006 5:45 PM
I'd have to say that Mybloglog and Otavo are the neatest little co innovators.
Posted by: Tim | December 15, 2006 6:25 PM
Definitely the non-profit http://kiva.org/
It's web 2.0 meets the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.
Everyone can now easily be a charitable VC for a poor country.
All it takes is a Paypal account.
Posted by: Troy | December 15, 2006 6:35 PM
I love Mybloglog too and hmmmm....
Posted by: Rune Wiggers | December 16, 2006 5:06 AM
I would vote for DigitalJournal.com, like Digg, but they pay members to contribute.
Posted by: DV | December 16, 2006 8:06 AM
Do past winners get two votes? :) I vote mybloglog...changed the game on social networks by creating a network of networks wrapped in other value added services. Will be the forefather of other distributed networks.
Posted by: Dick Costolo | December 16, 2006 10:17 AM
I would vote for Digital Journal, it is a neat networking site, is updated with new news and technology innovation more and more daily.
Posted by: CV | December 16, 2006 10:35 AM
I'd vote for www.DonationCoder.com.
It's a donationware community, pioneer in its field.
It is funded by donations from its members, which now reach up to 50 000, making it a unique project in donationware.
The community is always looking for new coders to join the group, either for creating donationware projects or to attend the "coding snacks", a section where everybody can suggest a program of their own to be taken by one of the site's coders.
DonationCoder is a recent project, but the main administrator already presented his conclusions about the first year of activity. It's a very interesting article which focus the main points around creating donationware software. Definitely worth a read: http://www.donationcoder.com/Articles/One/index.html
To know more about DonationCoder, just read the about page, http://www.donationcoder.com/About/index.html. That'll help you understand the goals of this wonderful site!
Posted by: jgpaiva | December 16, 2006 11:49 AM
For Best LittleCo:
Definitely 83°. They're the makers of the amazing Web App 30Boxes, and it's made up of only three people!
Posted by: Brian | December 16, 2006 12:02 PM
I would vote for DigitalJournal.com as well. Nice community of writers.
Posted by: Rumble | December 16, 2006 2:14 PM
Clipmarks
Posted by: Godfrey Daniel | December 16, 2006 5:43 PM
My nomination: www.zolved.com for best web LittleCo
I like where they are going with this. Companies are innovating and coming with new devices on a daily basis. But one problem I have (and sure most people will agree with me!) with all of them is Technical Support (or the lack of it). Zolved tries to solve this using vertical search and social networking. I think its promising bcos of their approach to tech support and overall its importance going forward. Ive tried and it and have been preety satisfied with the service.
Posted by: Raveen | December 16, 2006 7:36 PM
Thanks everyone, excellent suggestions so far and some early favorites have emerged...
Keep the suggestions and nominations coming! :-)
Posted by: Richard MacManus | December 16, 2006 8:56 PM
Very kind of you all. It's good to be liked.
Posted by: Scott Rafer | December 16, 2006 9:09 PM
I would nominate www.blinklist.com for their innovations in social search and discovery. However, I guess the other "little companies" are already pretty big compared to us so perhaps next year. :-)
Posted by: Mike | December 17, 2006 3:38 AM
LittleCo - definitely MyBlogLog (deep experience, slim interface - the winning match).
Promising - Dapper
Posted by: Uri L. | December 17, 2006 3:45 AM
I would like to see www.30boxes.com on this list. It's just 3 people and I don't even think they have a office they are so small. Its the one web-app I truly cant live with out.
Posted by: brklynsurfer | December 17, 2006 8:01 AM
DigitalJournal.com - is best for me!
Posted by: Loan admin | December 17, 2006 8:54 AM
This post wouldn't work, probably, if the subject had been 'best desktop app innovators'.
This kinda shows that the online apps are indeed winning the software war - at least in terms of innovation.
Posted by: Mikael Bergkvist | December 17, 2006 12:40 PM
Hey,
take a look at http://clipmarks.com . Next generation social bookmarking and archiving.
Blessings!
Posted by: Funana | December 17, 2006 1:50 PM
I would definitely vote for digitaljournal.com. It's a wonderful forum for users to contribute to the site's content and make some money at the same time!
Posted by: Cindy | December 17, 2006 6:48 PM
Hello...this is my first post here..greetings to everyone. I have just got involved with blogging and having a great time. Its even better when its regarding Web 2.0....
I nominate www.Weblo.com...a social networking site, reseller of internet domains which have been registered already.
If the latter takes off...the impact on Web 2.0 would be massive.......
Posted by: Adrian keys | December 18, 2006 2:20 AM
I would nominate http://www.contactoffice.com
A very neat collaborative webapp. Check out their ajax version on beta.contactoffice.com
Posted by: Patrick | December 18, 2006 2:48 AM
I nominate 30Boxes.com because they allway stayed one step ahead of Google's calendar application and still hold the no.1 position in usability and features.
Posted by: Roland | December 18, 2006 6:37 AM
I wanted to take just a minute to talk about 30boxes.com. It's one of my favorite websites. Behind pandora.com, I think it IS my favorite site.
It's an online calendar. But it goes way beyond that. It's fast. It's so easy to use. It helps me stay in touch with friends (I can see what my buddies are up to, which is cool).
It has this really innovative feature called the "one box." You know how in traditional calendars you have to click on the day, then the time, then type in your appointment, set a reminder, etc, etc. Well, with 30boxes, it's intelligent. There's a big text-box at the top that you just type plain english in to and it figures out the rest. So when I type "Lunch with Mary next Wendesday at 3pm) it automatically creates the entry in the right place at the right time like magic!! :)
The features go on and on. There's a feature called "Web-Top" that acts like a little desktop application. You can have a mini view of your calendar as well as "panels" that you can set up to show various websites or things... That way you can have more of your information in one place.
30boxes is lovely. They're constantly adding new features, doing speed upgrades, keeping users in the loop, and everyone who seems to RUN the site just seem like such cool people.
If you feel you need some organization in your life (and who doesn't?), 30boxes.com might just end up being the best thing that has ever happened to you.
Posted by: dep | December 18, 2006 8:15 AM
Count me down as another vote for digitaljournal.com -- they always have news before networks get it, they are updated every minute, fast growing community and they share ad revenue with all users. Simple to use, great tools for subscribing and many little features I haven't seen anywhere else. One user above compares to Digg, but I'd say its better in terms of content and the new launch of Digg copies many things that was done on digitaljournal a long time ago. I'm a long time user of the site and I support it strongly.
Posted by: Tekkit | December 18, 2006 10:05 AM
Hi Richard,
For Best Web LittleCo for 2006, I'm nominating Reevoo:
www.reevoo.com
They're a UK-based consumer review company that *gasp* actually has a viable business model. Retailers put them in touch with people who have made a recent purchase. Reevoo contacts the buyer and asks for a review. If they receive one, they screen it (for obscenity, spam etc) and then show it on their own site and provide it to the retailer's site as an authenticated review from an actual purchaser. And the retailers pay for the service.
It's gone from a couple of guys working from home in 2004 to receiving $5m in funding last week.
And it's all coded in Ruby.
Posted by: Colin Donald | December 18, 2006 1:33 PM
I would have to nominate Meebo, Decipho and Zoho.
Posted by: Mitch | December 18, 2006 6:02 PM
I would like to nominate Near-Time as the best web collaboration app using weblogs and wikis. http://www.near-time.com
Posted by: Brian | December 18, 2006 6:41 PM
I have to second the recommendation for Clipmarks... http://clipmarks.com. A brand new kind of social info sharing experience.
Posted by: Penn Finley | December 18, 2006 9:25 PM
I would go for WORDPRESS. Used too much, read too much and write too much.
Posted by: Rulepark | December 19, 2006 1:16 AM
Best little company .... 2 words .... 30Boxes
It's changed my life ... and my wife's, and she doesn't really like computers.
Posted by: Paul Marshall | December 19, 2006 1:20 AM
I completely agree that the Best LittleCo is 83°. Three people qualifies them as little, and their 30boxes.com web app which I use more times a day than I check my e-mail (and that's a LOT) qualifies them as the best.
Posted by: Lori Ann | December 19, 2006 6:41 AM
http://www.centraldesktop.com
Best business web collaboration tool we have found. They offer both live web conferencing and wiki/shared workspaces well integrated together.
Posted by: Chris | December 19, 2006 11:55 AM
Best little company: 83 degrees, makers of 30boxes. Love that software, it keeps getting better, and I'm in it every day.
Posted by: Ken Walker | December 20, 2006 6:22 AM
Netvibes changed my web experience ! Netvibes.
Posted by: Lucas | December 20, 2006 5:21 PM
1st web2 startpage entrant to grace the scene. Protopage (http://www.protopage.com) The personal web portal that is highly configurable, and allows users to create multiple tabbed portal pages with varying access permissions. With Protopage it is possible to have a private homepage with all the inboxes of your various email accounts, personal bookmarks, RSS feeds, games etc. and have similar pages that you can password protect for invited access or create public pages and share your favourite bookmarks, RSS feeds... description courtesy…Alex Homanchuk
Location:London, Ontario, Canada
Posted by: Coleman | December 25, 2006 6:01 AM
If the ranking calculations are still open, my submission would be www.geobeats.com
Posted by: Mohit | January 3, 2007 10:08 AM