Top 10 Web Platforms of 2009
2009 has been a big year for mobile and real-time technologies, which is reflected in our selection of the top 10 Web platforms of the year. It's the final instalment of our series of top products of 2009.
As we noted in last year's round-up, a web platform can be as simple as an API (like Twitter's) that allow external developers to tap into a company's data. It can also be software and services, like Amazon's Web Services. Or it can be a fully fledged development platform, such as iPhone SDK and Adobe AIR. Whatever the case, platforms on the Web allow people to build on top of another company's product, so we think it's an appropriate way to close our Top Web Products series.
As Twitter's director of platform, Ryan Sarver, repeatedy pointed out during his presentation at this year's LeWeb that Twitter and its ecosystem of third-party developers have a highly symbiotic relationship. Twitter's APIs are still rate-limited and Twitter won't make the full firehose of feeds available to all of its developers until early 2010. There can be no doubt, however, that Twitter has managed to create one of the most vibrant developer communities around its platform.
Over the course of the year, Twitter introduced a number of new APIs, including a geolocation API that makes it easy to attach geodata to a tweet, and the controversial retweet API. With Twitter Connect, Twitter also released a competitor to Facebook Connect, although this tool hasn't found widespread adoption yet.
Just like Twitter, Facebook's success has increasingly become dependent on the third-party ecosystem that has grown up around the Facebook platform. According to Ethan Beard, who manages development of the Facebook Platform, over 500,00 applications have been developed on top of the Facebook platform and over 250 million users use at least one of these.
The Facebook platform is not just about letting users play games like Farmville and or novelty apps like SuperPoke. Facebook Connect, for example, is becoming increasingly popular as a sign-in mechanism on third-party sites. Over 80,000 sites now utilize Facebook Connect, 60 million Facebook users use it and two-thirds of all the sites in the Comscore 100 index currently use it.
WordPress.org
Without any doubt, the world of blogging would look very different today if it wasn't for Automattic's open-source version of WordPress. The core open-source WordPress project is driven by a passionate group of developers, but a majority of development happens in the community that builds plugins for WordPress.
Earlier this year, WordPress released version 2.8 of its self-hosted product - a major overhaul of its core product. It includes a new interface and new options for plugin developers, including the ability to install and search for plugins from within the admin interface. Among some of the most popular WordPress plugins are an image gallery, an SEO tool and an analytics package.
iPhone
We admit that our choice of the iPhone as a top web platform could be somewhat controversial. After all, Apple's less than efficient approval system and the closed nature of the platform have even led some developers to abandon development for the iPhone altogether.
There can be little doubt, however, that Apple has created one of the most successful mobile developer programs. The App Store now features over 100,000 applications and an increasing number of web services now offer versions of their products that are specifically geared towards the iPhone's Safari browser.
This year, Apple extended the SDK with a number of new and improved features when it released version 3.0 of the iPhone OS. These updates include better support for 3D gaming, augmented reality apps, easier access to maps, in-app purchases and support for push notifications.
Android
Android came of age in 2009. It was still a relatively unknown mobile operating system in the consumers' conscience in 2008, but this year not only saw a large increase in developer activity, but also a strong interest in Android phones like the Motorola Droid.
Thanks to the open-source nature of the project, Android made it easy for developers of augmented reality applications to test their ideas long before Apple offered the necessary APIs on its platform. While the Motorola Droid features Android 2.0 already, most other manufacturers don't offer this update for their customers yet.
Next page: Top 10 Web Platforms of 2009, 6-10
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Ditto on Adobe Air. I'm just about to release my first Air app into the wild and I must say, I've been very impressed with the overall development experience.
The really cool thing, and the reason I chose Air over Silverlight was the ability to build the app with HTML CSS and Javascript. Now I can take the core js library and re-skin it with an HTML / CSS combo appropriate for the iPhone, blackberry, and android using PhoneGap.
I sure do miss multithreading though.
Have you guys checked out NPR's API? It's very new, but pretty incredible in breadth. While I haven't used the New York Times API, it's hard to imagine that it'd have a larger scope than NPR's (which includes transcripts, MP3s, etc.).
very good and interesting
"We admit that our choice of the iPhone as a top web platform could be somewhat controversial."
Correct, but not for the reasons you suggest. But for the same reason Android's SDK doesn't belong on this list: neither are Web platforms in any way shape or form.
"As we noted in last year's round-up, a web platform can be as simple as an API (like Twitter's) that allow external developers to tap into a company's data. It can also be software and services, like Amazon's Web Services. Or it can be a fully fledged development platform, such as iPhone SDK and Adobe AIR. Whatever the case, platforms on the Web allow people to build on top of another company's product, so we think it's an appropriate way to close our Top Web Products series."
Perhaps next year you'll simply call it "Top Platforms of 2010" and skip the convoluted logic used to justify non-Web technology on the list. :-)
The Web as the operating system is a powerful concept that will become a reality, so long as we don't screw it up. This vision mandates more openness, but also a degree of responsiblity and reliability on the part of Web developers and the artefacts they create. I think the open source community is up for this and, let's face it, their 'customer service' can't be any worse than that of many major software corporations.
Wordpress is great except that its spyware. I guess you dont see the Wordpress forums or any of the sites been discussing the phone home they dont tell you about happening.
This one lists everything Wordpress scrapes off of your server: http://lynnepope.net/data-wordpress-sends
http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/12/10/is-wordpress-spyware/
Wordpress team know all about this for 2 years but nobody tells us our privacy is kaput. You should be ashamed for recommending it.
You guys forgot heroku.com. It is a hosting provider for Ruby/Rack applications (i.e. Rails, Merb, Sinatra, Metal...), and is itself based on Amazon EC2. Heroku has enabled the easy deployment (using a git based workflow) of 38000+ web applications. It also scales really nicely.
What I find most interesting is the differences between this list and what a similar one would have been for 2008. Web platforms were already growing, but they really took off in 2009.
The cloud computing platforms you mention, Google App Engine and Windows Azure, are still very early in their maturity, but we will see these platforms grow significantly in 2010.
(I am contracting for M80, working with Microsoft to promote Windows Azure)
You forgot Titanium - which has the potential for even more than AIR in many ways. Its modular framework includes PHP, javascript, python, and much more. You can build iPhone apps, Android Apps, Desktop mac and pc apps and all with the latest Webkit browser enhancements. Also it's completely open source via GitHub. Oh, you also forgot GitHub...
@Andrew Wooldridge A quick search on Google for Titanium PHP and I get nothing...
Anyways - Adobe AIR 2.x is surely my pick for best Platform!
I've tried a few above... AIR just looks cooler and more svelte to code :)
@Andrew - I tried Titanium before I tried AIR and thought it had a while before I would consider writing apps with it. They missed really basic things like the ability to uninstall apps (in windows at least).
That's pretty basic stuff. Plus after my air app is done, I'll reuse my HTML CSS and Javascript assets and produce apps for mobile devices using PhoneGap.
Don't get me wrong, I like what Titanium is doing...
it can be a fully fledged development platform, such as iPhone SDK and Adobe AIR. Whatever the case, platforms on the Web allow people to build on top of another company's product
The cloud computing platforms you mention, Google App Engine and Windows Azure, are still very early in their maturity, but we will see these platforms grow significantly in 2010.
We just replaced our flagship personal finance application that was written in C# (on .NET) with an AIR app. There are some things we really wanted (crash reporting, memory usage), but overall we've been extremely pleased with it.
I quite agree with it . very helpful.
http://www.todaybattery.com/
the New York Times opened up an API for accessing an archive of all the paper's stories and APIs to access information about the U.S. Congress and the New York State legislature.as for this, i think it needs improved for more efficiency.
Without any doubt, the world of blogging would look very different today if it wasn't for Automattic's open-source version of WordPress.
Twitter , Facebook and WordPress get my vote. Great functionality on all these platforms.
How big is Android going to be? I don't know anything about mobile platforms and I'm beginning to wonder of I shouldn't start to learn about it.
number one facebook
Very good. Don`t forget word press...
The top three are dead on. In the end, Wordpress may end up higher.
The cloud computing platforms you mention, Google App Engine and Windows Azure, are still very early in their maturity, but we will see these platforms grow significantly in 2010.
Regards
Without any doubt, the world of blogging would look very different today if it wasn't for Automattic's open-source version of WordPress.
yep,2009 has been a big year for mobile and real-time technologies
it's hard to imagine that it'd have a larger scope than NPR's (which includes transcripts, MP3s, etc.).
The top three are dead on. In the end, Wordpress may end up higher.
Without any doubt, the world of blogging would look very different today if it wasn't for Automattic's open-source version of WordPress.
Good post. I know a little bit about this and your right, we have a long way to go. I can't wait for all this data to be broadcast though. I particularly enjoyed the post on "Personalization".
I vote for World Press and maybe Facebook. I find Twitter useless - I don't care what people do, eat etc.
He had so much growth that I one I got scared. Now it was not people get bored quickly. Readers have become unpredictable.