Top 10 Consumer Web Apps of 2008
It's a well-known fact that our readers are on the cutting - if not bleeding - edge of technology. But sometimes, it's important to take a step back and realize that the apps to which we've grown so incredibly accustomed are just barely beginning to register with the general public.
With the Top 10 Consumer Web Apps of 2008, we've tried to select the apps that have burst onto the radar of the everyday user this year - or if not quite, then perhaps they will next year.
This was a year - after years of build up - in which two major events had worldwide impact on the Web. These events focused the world's attention, had more consumers creating more online content, and had more people online searching for information than ever before: the Beijing Olympics and the US Presidential elections. Many of these apps have those events to thank for their exposure and adoption.
This is the third in a series of top products of 2008:
Note: We attempted to order this list from most obvious to least obvious.
1. Twitter
Twitter is the de facto leader of the microblogging scene, a realm usually rife with witty repartee between leading social media consultants and Web 2.0 developers. But when household names like Lance Armstrong, Richard Branson, Al Gore, Shaquille O'Neal, Britney Spears, and politicians across the US started using it, this year, it was clear that our selection as the Best Web LittleCo for 2007 had grown up - and entered the public consciousness.
Twitter was a constant fixture on ReadWriteWeb this year from its use as a source of news to its growing use as a customer service channel. But it wasn't without its hiccups. Midway through the year, Twitter - and its more and more frequent showings of the Fail Whale - was rapidly becoming persona non grata. In June 2008, Amazon's Jeff Bezos poured more cash into the service. And with the US elections, Twitter proved its mettle, becoming a critical forum for debate on the issues at hand.
2. Firefox
November 2008 marked the fourth birthday for Firefox, arguably one of the most successful open source projects and clearly the most popular Web browser that users have to actually install. In 2008, more and more of the consumer population gravitated to the browser that strives to deliver the Web the right way.
Firefox has continued to grow in popularity throughout 2008, but it was the download day for Firefox 3 that began to truly turn heads. Site crushing traffic to download a Web browser? Believe it. So much traffic, in fact, that it set a world record. That, and a number of other factors, had Firefox reaching a 20% market share in October of this year.
3. IntenseDebate
IntenseDebate - dubbed by RWW as the "the sophisticated blog comment system with the silly name" - provides a commenting add-in for blogs and Web sites that allows users to better manage their profiles and comments across multiple conversations. It also supports OpenID.
In 2008, distributed commenting was still a very young space with no clear leader. But when IntenseDebate appeared as the comment system on US President-elect Barack Obama's change.gov, it stepped into the public eye. Now, thousands of people are using the commenting system. This makes Automattic - the company that manages the development of WordPress - look pretty insightful for acquiring IntenseDebate this year.
4. Hulu
If Hulu - a joint video content sharing venture between NBC Universal and News Corp. - is any indication, traditional mainstream media companies are beginning to get this whole "online thing."
And with good reason. In 2008, Hulu shed its ugly duckling image and came into its own and was projected to earn a staggering $90 million in its first year. How? Again, the true turning point was the US elections. Consumers turned to Hulu as much for the political content, as for the satire - like Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show. Now, consumers are hooked and that affinity for the service is showing no sign of slowing.
5. Ning
Ning is a service designed to help anyone build a social network about anything that interests them. And in 2008, consumers flocked to the site to do exactly that - to the tune of a new social network created every 30 seconds.
As of October 2008, Ning was host to half of a million networks. And it will only continue to grow in the consumer space. Why? Much like Twitter, Ning has begun to attract celebrities who find the service a viable way of interacting with fans. Plus, with its integration of OpenSocial, Ning gains access to tech savvy consumers on a variety of social networks who already understand the dynamic.
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This is a great list!
Posted by: Edwin Khodabakchian | December 9, 2008 10:33 PM
Yes, picnik.com or buzzword.com
Posted by: Joseph | December 9, 2008 11:01 PM
I'll toss in some other candidates:
FeedHub
Jing
GOM Player
I consider all three essential consumer-oriented apps.
Also, I'm surprised that you didn't include FriendFeed. (It wouldn't make my top 10 list, but I suspect it would make a lot of top 10 lists.)
Posted by: David Scott Lewis | December 9, 2008 11:30 PM
Love the list. Using most of them. Firefox (obvious choice of browser), Ning, . Web2.0 has been a blessing and great way to connect & interact with people without geographic boundaries. World's really shrinking. Cooliris is cool too. LOve'em all.
Posted by: ShriNagesh | December 9, 2008 11:33 PM
Pretty good picks! I'd put firefox first :).
But why o why have you introduced pagination on articles?
This is like going from new-media to old-media. Does it really bring enough additional ad revenue to cancel out the horrible experience for the readers?
bye
Andraz Tori, Zemanta
Posted by: Andraz Tori | December 10, 2008 2:34 AM
Andraz, pagination is perfectly legit way to break up long articles. That's why we are doing it. I honestly don't know why people moan about it. It's one click extra, is that so bad? Why is clicking one more time a "horrible experience"? :-)
Hi All,
This is a great list! I'm certainly using a few of the tools discussed here. However, I think there is one that hasn't been mentioned. Similar to Ning, but waaaaayy better is SocialGO at www.socialgo.com. I've been playing around with building my own social network and the features provided are fantastic. The support provided is also brilliant...
I think this will be one to watch for in the new year...!
Great review by the way....
Bye
Posted by: Oscar | December 10, 2008 3:01 AM
Richard, there is a good reason to stick with one-page formatting: It's easier to capture the complete contents of an article. Take toread.cc, for example. I use this at least several times each day, especially with restricted content. It captures the entire page of what I'm reading and sends it to a designated email account (which I then filter and forward to other email accounts).
The benefit is obvious. BTW, this should hold true for just about every page capturing service; I don't know of any that will automatically capture following pages (e.g., a second and third page) ... although this would be a winning idea if someone did it.
Back to the main topic. Another service to add: YouConvertIt.com. I consider this another one of my must-have services. Better than Vixy, by far.
BTW, this selection and my previous three selections don't include the obvious. I've also focused on recommending services that are relatively new or just now getting traction AND do/could have broad appeal (rather than being a "For Geeks Only" service).
Oh, I guess I should (obviously) include toread.cc.
On the "bigger picture" items, I'm not too thrilled with Firefox 3.x. With my 65 or 75 or 85 extensions, I could do more in Firefox 2.x (which I'm using as I type this; I run 3.x on another laptop). I'm also pretty pleased with Google Chrome -- and I wouldn't be surprised if I switched to Chrome as my primary browser in the next year. (Like many others, I also run IE, Safari and Maxthon. And I don't have anything against Flock or Opera; I just don't need to run more than four Google accounts at any given moment. However, I keep Flock and Opera on stand-by for those rare moments that I'm simultaneously in five or six Google accounts. Single instance restrictions really suck, especially when I'm using multiple Google apps.)
For security, there are a lot of apps that I like -- but I would never mention which ones in a blog post or comment except in passing. Think of drive-by and zero-day defenses, wireless monitoring, things like this. Plenty of good stuff out there.
Posted by: David Scott "Lightman" Lewis | December 10, 2008 6:38 AM
Cool collection...
My extra bonus is the http://www.stumbleupon.com
Posted by: alex | December 10, 2008 7:10 AM
excellent picks dude, excellent picks indeed.
jess
www.privacy.de.tc
Posted by: John Wright | December 10, 2008 8:48 AM
Is firefox really a web app? Seems more like a client app to me, but granted I agree it's popular and far superior to some alternatives!
Posted by: Martin | December 10, 2008 8:49 AM
If you mention Firefox, you might want to mention Digsby too. Wonderful app that interacts with sites like Facebook and Twitter as well as IM protocols.
Posted by: Morghus | December 10, 2008 8:57 AM
man these lists usually don't include anything I haven't already checked out... here goes a couple hours now! seems weird to have ning as 2008 though...
Posted by: Google Tutor | December 10, 2008 9:06 AM
Great list. Cooliris is great, glad to see it on the list.
Another app I'd add is fliff - www.fliff.tv - a facebook app that helps friends organize debts and pay back online. Useful for roommate situations.
Posted by: AG | December 10, 2008 9:22 AM
Firefox a web app? Yeah, right...
Posted by: Joe the Plumber | December 10, 2008 9:41 AM
Since when is Firefox a web app?
Posted by: Karl | December 10, 2008 9:52 AM
Some of the apps on this list are interesting, some more relevant to consumers than others -- but given the economic downturn and scores of big layoff announcements this year (8,000 announced by Sony yesterday, 1500 at Yahoo today) -- www.VisualCV.com clearly should have been included.
As increasing numbers of consumers find themselves in job search mode and stretching resources, things like streaming video; easy-fun searching of images; and iPhone apps will not be their focus -- certainly career management will.
http://www.visualcv.com
Posted by: Tim Woods | December 10, 2008 10:13 AM
I prefer the one page layout as well.
- I don't want it so I can capture it to some service
- I don't need 10 Google accounts
- I rarely use more than one extension (httpwatch)
One page give me lower latency and I'm pretty handy with "scroll".
Posted by: SRSLY FRNDLY | December 10, 2008 10:14 AM
Excellent list. Also, recently downloaded CoolIris and works great. Great to see some non household names in the list.
Posted by: Nagaraju | December 10, 2008 10:45 AM
I thought Intense Debate would be the way to go when I heard that Automattic had acquired them. (Before this announcement, DISQUS had the momentum and I chose it for my blog.)
So when the Intense Debate opened up again, I deactivated DISQUS and installed Intense Debate. Or tried to. The short version of the story is that I experienced a *lot* less frustration installing DISQUS.
Intense Debate will surely work out all the bugs, but until then I am more than happy to return to DISQUS!
Posted by: Tri | December 10, 2008 11:33 AM
Tri, I'm sorry to hear that you ran into issues implementing IntenseDebate. I'd love to help troubleshoot and get everything working as it should. Could you please drop me a line with a description of the issue? Thanks!
Posted by: Michael Koenig | December 10, 2008 12:00 PM
Missing from the list is Songbird. Even thought it just came out of Beta it is def a contender.
Posted by: BitterBlood | December 10, 2008 12:07 PM
Thanks for all the additional suggestions! As you can likely imagine, it was very difficult to have to cull some very cool apps from the list.
And okay, okay. Point taken on Firefox. It's a Web app in that it... um... is an app that let's you use the Web? No? ;)
Web of the year.
Posted by: ontradeline | December 10, 2008 12:47 PM
Anything that you have to download and install on your machine is not a web app - by definition. Everyone jumps on FF as not being a web app, but the first thing I see when I go to Cooliris is a download button.
Doesn't mean it's not useful, just means it's not a web app. Browser extensions and plug-ins probably need a list all their own.
Posted by: Barry Dahl | December 10, 2008 2:11 PM
@Barry (#25), I totally agree that there's another post in the making, i.e., a post listing the top 10 extensions/add-ons for FF, IE, Safari, Chrome, Flock, Opera and Maxthon.
Posted by: David Scott "Lightman" Lewis | December 10, 2008 3:58 PM
I'm always surprised when people mention last.fm over Pandora. I have accounts with both services, but I much prefer Pandora.
My biggest complaint about last.fm is the inconsistency in volume from one song to the next. I listen to music in my cubicle at work, and since there are people in my office that dont share my musical interests I have to keep the volume low. With last.fm I am constantly having to mess with the volume which is extremely annoying.
My only complaint about Pandora is that they recently added an activity notice that stops playing music if you haven't touched the computer in awhile.
Posted by: Patty | December 10, 2008 6:09 PM
I would add www.messagesling.com a company I founded to help remove the pain associated with voicemail by turning them into text and delivering them as emails or SMS messages and making them available online.
drop me an email at sjunkin@messagesling.com and I will set you up with an extended free trial.
Scot
CEO, MessageSling
Posted by: Scot | December 10, 2008 7:46 PM
no word about FriendFeed, but you do have the option of cc-ing comments to FriendFeed, better than putting it on a list, use it. Great!
Posted by: Neagrigore | December 10, 2008 11:21 PM
I recommend FortyChapters.com - it's a site that helps first time writers get started writing their first books. It's not as big as any on the list, but well worth mentioning.
Posted by: Chris Mitchell | December 11, 2008 12:55 AM
Definitely firefox has been the greatest from the list above
Posted by: prestige car hire | December 11, 2008 10:39 AM
really think lala.com should be on there. i use it as my music player and library all day every day.
Posted by: Ian D. Miller | December 11, 2008 3:09 PM
Great list. Definitely some things to look into.
Posted by: Jaime Mountjoy | December 12, 2008 10:38 AM
@Richard:
I am not disputing the fact that pagination is perfectly legitimate. It is! It is just unpleasant for us - your readers.
I still think RWW has the best coverage of many areas of web tech (especially semantic tech and programming). And I am definitely not going to stop visiting it. I'd just wish it could stay as friendly to readers as it was.
I also understand business principles behind the decision and they are legitimate. But make it clear the change was done because of advertising revenue that is needed even though it reduces reader satisfaction. We'll gladly take that argument since we are getting this great information resource (virtually) for free.
Andraz Tori
Posted by: Andraz Tori | December 12, 2008 12:25 PM
thanks this is good apps list
haber sitesi www.nbchaber.com
Posted by: haber | December 16, 2008 3:11 AM
Great to see twitter on top...unusual to see a great networking system that hasn't been monetized yet but carries so much value for so many different types of groups.
Posted by: Arif Gangji | December 16, 2008 10:31 AM
Neat list.
I'm surprised CoolIris hasn't reached the critical mass it deserves yet. I've been covering it and tooting its horn since thee dawn of PicLens early this year, and it befuddles me why people would do image search any other way.
A few more ideas:
Joost
NikePlus.com
WordPress (Yep, it's been ubiquitous for what seems like forever, but the recent 2.7 has really taken things to a whole new level.)
Posted by: brainpicker | December 16, 2008 3:55 PM
http://www.filmsuggest.com is also a worthy mention
Posted by: kyle | December 16, 2008 4:29 PM
thanks a lot. A very useful list of products on a single page.
Posted by: Sachin | December 17, 2008 2:43 AM
Cool list, and I am already using half of them. Can't wait to try out the other half.
Posted by: Greg B | December 17, 2008 8:36 AM
I'm Happy U gave Cooliris the Props it so Richly deserves!!
WEB3D.0 Baby!!********** ;)) Peace*
Posted by: BillyWarhol | December 21, 2008 1:30 PM
"Why is clicking one more time a "horrible experience"?"
Because:
The page reloads and
any other site too is just a click away and I could lose interest in ur site and visit the one a click away.
Posted by: NA | December 21, 2008 10:22 PM
Wow. No Google Applications? Gmail, GChat, Gmail Video Chat, and most importantly, Chrome! With the advent of the last two, Google must've had a great year.
Posted by: H. Millz | December 26, 2008 3:09 PM
Dear Thank you very much
Posted by: منتدى | January 1, 2009 4:24 AM
my favorite firefox and all extensions
Posted by: haber | January 6, 2009 8:19 AM
forever firefox number 1
Posted by: seçim | January 7, 2009 10:23 AM
hulu - ning - twitter very nice
Posted by: aday | January 7, 2009 10:24 AM