ReadWriteWeb

An intern once asked me, what's the difference between a "journalist" of my day and a "blogger" of his? I laughed and told him my day ain't over yet. Then I followed up by saying that journalism is something I do on a blog, and there are many other things one can do on a blog, only a few of which I'll allow.

The thing journalists still do today is extract and present the viewpoints of people who matter more to the business they cover than the journalists themselves. Here now in living color are a handful of the most revealing, poignant, and on occasion, truthful statements made to ReadWriteWeb journalists in the year about to pass.

Every year ReadWriteWeb selects the top 10 products or developments across a range of categories. The latest installment is the top 10 stories of the culture of technology.

These are the stories that answer that question you sometimes hear from tech skeptics or those who mistake advances in computing and communications for Beanie Babies and Segways. The question is "So what?" Here's what.

This month ReadWriteWeb is publishing a series of top 10 lists of the best products of 2010, each based on a specific category. This post is a little different, in that it's my own personal top 10 list of my favorite products of 2010. I'm not claiming these are the best products of the year, only that they're the products I used and loved the most. Some were new in 2010 (iPad, Flipboard), some came into their own due to the way trends played out (Instapaper, Evernote), some were relative 'oldies but goodies' that I simply got a lot of joy out of this year (Facebook, Shazam).

Here are my favorites, in no particular order...

Nearly a full half-hour into the darkness this morning and we were beginning to wonder if it was time to break out the hurricane candles and board games - the world seemed to suddenly slow down and it had, dramatically. Twitter, you see, died on us this morning.

While we're used to seeing the intermittent Fail Whale, the outage this morning lasted a solid 24 minutes according to the company, affecting both the website and API.

In this week's installment of the ReadWriteStart Weekly Wrapup, we analyze some industry predictions on social media and provide entrepreneurs with some stock tips to bring to the negotiating table. We also look into a man in Australia who's looking to turn some heads by launching a Web startup in just seven days on a $500 budget, and we run down the top 10 tools to help small business collaborate online. As usual we check in with our semi-weekly series Never Mind the Valley, which this week chronicles the emerging tech scene in Israel, and shows us how there's more going on in Austin than just South by Southwest.

With the growing number of online services, it's becoming more economical for small business to rely on web-based tools rather than expensive enterprise software. Not too long ago we brought you 5 Web Apps To Keep Your Startup Organized, and now the website Business Pundit has released their top 10 list of online collaboration tools for small businesses.

Call it Web 2.0, or Enterprise 2.0; the fact of the matter is that online services just make more sense for businesses on a budget. Because these software platforms are web-based, users can use any computer to access them at work, at home or even on the road. They eliminate the need for expensive software and fewer IT employees are required for setup, updates and patches to systems.

Much of this blog's coverage centers on technology and companies based in the U.S, particularly in Silicon Valley.

However, thriving tech communities exist around the globe, from Toronto to Tel Aviv, and the success of internationally-based web products serve as a reminder to all of us that innovation knows no borders. Check out our picks for the top 10 international web products of 2009 and let us know your favorite international apps in the comments.

Every year at ReadWriteWeb, we look at hundreds of new web apps aimed at everyday users. Occasionally, we come across a service that stands out from the pack because it offers a novel solution, disrupts the way incumbent market leaders do business or changes the way we experience the Web.

Here is our list of the top 10 consumer web apps of 2009. These are apps and services that helped consumers use the web in new ways this year; and brought technologies that were previously only geared towards advanced users to a mainstream audience.

As the year draws to an end, all the large search engines have now published their year-end roundups of the most popular search queries on their sites. On almost every service, these include Michael Jackson, Twitter, Lady Gaga and terms related to Twilight. Google also just released its annual Zeitgeist survey, which features lists of the fastest rising search terms on Google's properties worldwide. Among the top queries related to technology and the Web, Facebook (#2) leads the charge ahead of Twitter (#4) and Windows 7 (#8) in the global survey. In the US, Twitter was the fastest rising search term of 2009, followed by Michael Jackson, Facebook, Hulu and hi5.

Today, Salesforce.com has taken their enterprise cloud computing to the next level with Force.com Sites.

The new offering from this "platform as a service" allows anyone to easily build a fully-featured website using the very same cloud infrastructure it has provided for applications. In other words, a comprehensive website can now be created through Force.com, and literally all you need do is design your UI with web standards such as HTML, JavaScript, Flex and CSS.