Top Web Apps & Sites of 2007

From Read/WriteWeb by Richard MacManus

RSS Reader: Google Reader (with an ongoing interest in Bloglines Beta, Newsgator, and fav.or.it)

Google Reader has been my favourite RSS Reader throughout 2007, thanks to their continued innovation and experimentation. But the great thing about this space is that innovation is back: Google forced Bloglines' hand, but the Bloglines Beta is encouraging. Newsgator has never really stopped innovating and it's only the fact that I prefer a browser-based Reader that's prevented me from becoming a Newsgator fanatic.

One new RSS Reader to watch is fav.or.it , which is doing some innovative work including integrating comments. Also keep an eye on Streamy and FeedEachother (our review).

See 2007: The Year in RSS for more details on this market.

Start Page: Pageflakes, Netvibes

I use them both because they are fine products, well designed and always ahead of the curve in comparison with Google, Microsoft and Yahoo's similar offerings.

iGoogle does offer more gadgets, but the slick UI and constant developments in Pageflakes and Netvibes is what keeps those two at the top of my list of start pages.

Tech News: Techmeme, Original Signal

Techmeme is well known amongst tech bloggers and readers, quite simply because it's second to none in keeping up with tech news. Aggregating news on a single page, ordering it and having it constantly catching scoops as they happen - it's very hard to pull that off. Many have tried (TailRank, Megite, etc), but none have become daily addictions like Techmeme has for me.

Original Signal is another that I use a lot. It is a useful aggregation service of popular links, in a variety of categories. It's a very simple idea, but nicely implemented (with previews, ability to re-order, etc).

Social News: Digg, StumbleUpon

I use Digg a lot to monitor tech news - and of course it is an important traffic driver for tech blogs such as RWW. StumbleUpon is something I'm still getting used to, despite having been a user for a while now. By design it favors serindipity over tracking, which makes it different from most of the news services I use (digg, Techmeme, Google Reader, Pageflakes, etc). Still, it has an attraction to it - why else do I have the StumbleUpon toolbar on my browser? :-)

del.icio.us is something I use a lot too. Another one to keep an eye on is Sphinn, a small but influential social news site focused on search. And there is a new design coming for Propeller (ex-Netscape). Mixx is another getting rave reviews. So these may become regular visits for me in '08.

Reddit is another social news product worth mentioning, although I've always found its popular stories to be a bit on the frivolous side. Just my opinion.