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Saturday, 10 December 2005 |
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The Best Web 2.0 Software of 2005
It‘s getting towards the end of the year and I‘m feeling the need to take stock of where we‘ve actually come with Web 2.0 in the last 12 months. So much has happened in this space recently and a tidal wave of innovative, high-quality software has been released this year. So much in fact, that it‘s hard to keep track of it all. While many of us talk about Web 2.0 ideas, there‘s no substitute for pointing to concrete examples. And this also gives credit where credit is due to all the hard-working folks building the next generation of the Web.
So in spirit of the holidays, here is a list of some of the best Web 2.0 software that I‘ve come across so far. You may have heard of some of these, but hopefully you‘ll find a few nice new Christmas presents under your Web 2.0 tree.
Finally, the usual disclaimer: This list is entirely subjective and any errors or omissions are my fault, you may not (and probably won‘t!) agree with some of the software I‘ve listed. But this isn‘t a one-way web, I definitely encourage you to list anything you feel we missed or got wrong below in the comments. Please use the wiki link syntax ([url text_desc]) help to make sure you embed plenty of good links. Finally, a big thanks to Kate Allen for help compiling this list. Enjoy!
The Best Web 2.0 Software of 2005
Category: Social Bookmarking
Best Offering: del.
Description: Just acquired by Yahoo!, which already has a social bookmarking service called My Web 2.0, the exact future of this seminal bookmarking site is now a little up in the air. But del. remains the best, largest, fastest, and most elegant social bookmarking service on the Web. In fact, del. is the benchmark that all others use. And because del. appears to take the Web 2.0 ideas pretty seriously, they provide a nice API for others to build new services on top of. As a consequence of this, and because social bookmarking sites makes everyone‘s data public, witness the amazing array of add-on services (or if you have 15 mins to spare, look here) that mash-up or otherwise reuse del. functionality and content. If you want access to you bookmarks anywhere you go along with engaging and satisfying functionality, this is your first stop. I personally can‘t live without my tag cloud of del. bookmarks.
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Category: Web 2.0 Start Pages
Best Offering: Netvibes
Description: There are a rapidly growing number of Ajax start pages that allow your favorite content to be displayed, rearranged, and viewed dynamically whenever you want. But if the traffic to this blog is any indication (though possibly it isn‘t) Netvibes is far and away the most popular one. Available in multiple languages, sporting new integration with Writely, and offering an extremely slick and well-designed interface that provides some of the best DHTML powered drag-an-drop organization, Netvibes has no major vendor backing, yet it has captured mindshare out of pure excellence. While many of the major Web companies like Microsoft and Google are offering competing products, none of them are yet very good.
Runners-Up: 
Category: Online To Do Lists
Best Offering: Voo2do
Description: Ever more of the software we use on a daily basis is moving online, from e-mail to feed readers. To-do list managers are no exception. I‘ve used a variety of them and so far the one that‘s resonated with me most is Voo2do. A one person operation run by Shimon Rura, Voo2do uses Ajax sparingly but very effectively to let you create and manage multiple to do lists. With an API available for you to access or export your data with your own programs, support for Joel Spolsky‘s Painless Software Scheduling method, Voo2do is the embodiment of simple, satisfying software.
Runners-Up:  
Category: Peer Production News
Best Offering: digg
Description: While not packed with Ajax, digg frankly doesn‘t lack for it. And of course, Ajax is only one of many optional ingredients on the Web 2.0 checklist. The important Web 2.0 capability digg provides is that it successfully harnesses collective intelligence. All news items listed in digg are supplied by its users which then exert editorial control by clicking on the digg button for each story they like. The home page lists the most popular current stories, all selected by its registered users. And digg‘s RSS feed has to be one of the most popular on the Web. Digg has been so successful that Wired magazine has even speculated it could bury Slashdot, which also allows users to submit stories, but doesn‘t let them see what stories were submitted or vote on them.
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Category: Image Storage and Sharing
Best Offering: Flickr
Description: Also acquired by Yahoo! earlier this year, Flickr is the canonical photo/image sharing site par excellence. Sprinkled with a smattering of just enough Ajax to reduce page loads and make tasks easy, Flickr provides an open API, prepackaged licensing models for your photos, tagging, a variety of community involvement mechanisms, and a vast collection of add-ons and mashups. There are other sites but none of them compare yet. Flickr is one of the Web 2.0 poster children and for a good reason.
Runners-Up:  
Category: 3rd Party Online File Storage
Best Offering: Openomy
Description: As more and more software moves to the Web, having a secure place for your Web-based software to store files such as documents, media, and other data will become essential. There is a burgeoning group of online file storage services and Openomy is one that I‘ve been watching for a while. With 1Gb of free file storage and an open API for programmatic access to your tag-based Openomy file system, and you have the raw ingredients for secure online storage of your documents wherever you go. There is even a Ruby-binding for the API. Expect lots of growth in this space going forward, especially as other Web 2.0 applications allow you to plug into your online storage service of choice and the desire also grows to offload personal data backup to professionals.
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