Sunday, November 8, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
2007 - The Web 2.0 Year
Rather predictably, 2007 was a big year for the second generation of the web. Many saw it coming, and no doubt it will continue to grow with startups popping up all over the place. But what stands out from the past year? What made us stand up and take notice?
To help answer that question, we’ve come up with a set of awards. These aren’t your usual “Best in class” awards, because we get enough of those around this time of year. No, these awards recognise real achievements. I know you can’t wait any longer, so let’s get on with it.
The “Where Did That Come From” Award
TwitterYes, it had to be really. Twitter really sprang out of no where right at the beginning of the year to become one of the most used, and most talked about Web 2.0 services out there. It’s such a simple concept, I don’t think anyone really predicted such success when it first launched. Fortunately for Twitter, they had some noteable names sign up early on. Like they say, it’s who you know, not what you know.
The “Oh My, It’s So … Big” Award
FaceBookLooking around these internets, there are few sites that command the audience FaceBook does. While it is (debatable) still behind MySpace, 2007 has certainly been FaceBook’s year. From a fairly niche site, really not that long ago, to the all encompassing community we have today, it’s been a dramatic riseStats showing Facebooks growth. It’s not all been plain sailing though, FaceBook has seen it’s problems increase along with it’s popularity. Mid-way through the year there were numerous stories reporting that many companies, schools, colleges and filtering companies were blocking FaceBook and later in the year there was a raucous surrounding the perceived invasion of privacy the new FaceBook ads brought.
The “Oh, Shiny” Award
PicnikDesign in the Web 2.0 world is a bot of a touchy subject. People are still slightly fearfull when talking about it due to the early suggestions that the Web 2.0 was style over substance. So when looking at services that I deemed eligible for this award, I was really looking at not just the design but the ease of use. And as someone who deals with interface design on a daily basis, I have to appreciate interface design that simplifies complicated processes. And for me, the clear winner was Picnik. Their tagline is “Photo Editing Made Fun”, and while it may not be fun, it’s certainly easy and frustration free.
For those of you wondering, I also considered Google in this category for their Google Docs application. The reason it didn’t win is down to the fact that they did a great job of converting a desktop application into a web application, but didn’t really bring anything new to the table. It’s also lacking the intrinsic Web 2.0 “style” of Picnik.
The “All That And A Bag Of Potato Chips” Award
Google LogoThis is the category for the people that do everything. So we better fess up, there’s only one company that does blogging, documents, email, chat, search, advertising, maps, calendering, web hosting, online payments, analytics, news reading, feed reading, photo hosting, translation, video…
Yes, it’s Google. The remarkable thing, really, is that Google tend to implement all of these things really rather well. Yes, there are blips, but over all, they’ve got a group of market leaders.
I have a feeling there’s some more awards to come…
To help answer that question, we’ve come up with a set of awards. These aren’t your usual “Best in class” awards, because we get enough of those around this time of year. No, these awards recognise real achievements. I know you can’t wait any longer, so let’s get on with it.
The “Where Did That Come From” Award
TwitterYes, it had to be really. Twitter really sprang out of no where right at the beginning of the year to become one of the most used, and most talked about Web 2.0 services out there. It’s such a simple concept, I don’t think anyone really predicted such success when it first launched. Fortunately for Twitter, they had some noteable names sign up early on. Like they say, it’s who you know, not what you know.
The “Oh My, It’s So … Big” Award
FaceBookLooking around these internets, there are few sites that command the audience FaceBook does. While it is (debatable) still behind MySpace, 2007 has certainly been FaceBook’s year. From a fairly niche site, really not that long ago, to the all encompassing community we have today, it’s been a dramatic riseStats showing Facebooks growth. It’s not all been plain sailing though, FaceBook has seen it’s problems increase along with it’s popularity. Mid-way through the year there were numerous stories reporting that many companies, schools, colleges and filtering companies were blocking FaceBook and later in the year there was a raucous surrounding the perceived invasion of privacy the new FaceBook ads brought.
The “Oh, Shiny” Award
PicnikDesign in the Web 2.0 world is a bot of a touchy subject. People are still slightly fearfull when talking about it due to the early suggestions that the Web 2.0 was style over substance. So when looking at services that I deemed eligible for this award, I was really looking at not just the design but the ease of use. And as someone who deals with interface design on a daily basis, I have to appreciate interface design that simplifies complicated processes. And for me, the clear winner was Picnik. Their tagline is “Photo Editing Made Fun”, and while it may not be fun, it’s certainly easy and frustration free.
For those of you wondering, I also considered Google in this category for their Google Docs application. The reason it didn’t win is down to the fact that they did a great job of converting a desktop application into a web application, but didn’t really bring anything new to the table. It’s also lacking the intrinsic Web 2.0 “style” of Picnik.
The “All That And A Bag Of Potato Chips” Award
Google LogoThis is the category for the people that do everything. So we better fess up, there’s only one company that does blogging, documents, email, chat, search, advertising, maps, calendering, web hosting, online payments, analytics, news reading, feed reading, photo hosting, translation, video…
Yes, it’s Google. The remarkable thing, really, is that Google tend to implement all of these things really rather well. Yes, there are blips, but over all, they’ve got a group of market leaders.
I have a feeling there’s some more awards to come…
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