Here we go again … our latest list of the 100 best websites sees short attention spans, the rise of Twitter, more browser wars and celebrity gossip sites setting the news agenda
Andy Warhol talked of a time when everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. With hindsight, however, he might have wanted to revise that down to about five minutes. On today's web, phrases such as "here today, gone tomorrow" seem to involve ridiculously long timescales.
People who moaned that blogging represented a move to shorter attention spans – 250-to-350-word posts rather than 1,000-word stories – have now seen blog posts start to look big and, frankly, old-fashioned. Today's trendsetters are using "microblogging" sites such as Tumblr,Posterous and Soup.io, which are taking the opportunity for creative "borrowing" to new heights.
But the smash hit of 2009 has been (apologies: I know this will cause pain) Twitter, where 1,000-word stories are reduced to 140-character tweets. Short attention spans R us.
Twitter's rapid growth and open programming interface have given the site a wide impact. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of ancillary sites and services have been launched to help Twitter users post pictures, track followers, or – more usefully, from a commercial point of view – find out what the "hive mind" is thinking. Twitterfall is just one example. More recently, Listorious stepped in to make it easier to find and explore lists made using Twitter's new list feature, while The Twitter Tim.es cleverly turned selected tweets into a personalised newspaper. How many of these sites will survive is, of course, open to question. Some are less like standalone sites than parasites.
Major web players such as Facebook, Google, and Microsoft also got involved. Both Google and Microsoft signed deals for Twitter searches, while Facebook paid it the ultimate compliment of more or less copying its service. Or, perhaps, copying FriendFeed, which many users link to both Twitter and Facebook.
Facebook, while far from new, was another big player in 2009, reaching more than 350 million users. And through Facebook Connect, it has extended its presence across the web. Once you have a Facebook identity – and you must have one, mustn't you? – then you can use it to access a growing number of sites and services. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. The web might be a kinder, more polite place if people said things under their real names, which is what Facebook's about.
Those in search of their five minutes of fame or, more likely, five minutes of fun fun fun, headed for YouTube. Although it has been challenged by rivals such as Vimeo and Microsoft's Soapbox (RIP), its dominance has not been seriously threatened. Only the pornographers have been able to build much of a following outside YouTube.
Which is not to say that YouTube owns the web video market. The BBC has made a huge impact with its iPlayer catchup service, and in the US,Hulu has enjoyed great success with TV series and movies. Of course, both sites are showing videos that YouTube would love to offer, at a profit, and it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Music has been a significant player in the growth of the web sinceNapster, and its influence continues to grow. Spotify has made the biggest impact this year, gaining mindshare lost by Last.fm and Pandora. Meanwhile, Pitchfork has expanded its role as the web's authoritative music magazine, and The Hype Machine came to prominence as a source of instant erudition by tracking the music blogs.
Almost finally, it may be that we are seeing the return not just of the browser wars but of the search engine wars as well. Google still rules the world, but in Bing, it now has a competitor that does some things better and has, in Microsoft, an owner with deep pockets. Alas, Bing also does many things a lot worse.
Possibly the most contentious part of this year's list is celebrity gossip. The argument against would be summed up by a Wikipedian in two words: "not notable". The argument for is that sites such as Perez Hiltonand AOL's TMZ are now helping to drive the news agenda. Even if you aren't interested in Michael Jackson's death, Tiger Woods's affairs or whatever, this stuff has become impossible to avoid. This is one case where many people would prefer the web's short attention span to be even shorter.
Blogging/microblogging
Now easier than falling off a log.
Browsers
Do we all need five browsers nowadays?
Cartoons
Everyone needs some relaxation. This is a visual one.
Celebrity gossip
No one needs this stuff, but it's starting to drive world news and web traffic.
Create/collaborate
With all of us now living more of our lives online, these sites just scratch the surface.
Film
Sites to see before heading for the latest blockbuster at your local multiplex.
Rotten Tomatoes Collects online film reviews, aggregates a score out of 100 and rates the film "fresh" or "rotten".
/Film Said to be the favourite film blog of directors Jason Reitman and Darren Aronofsky, /Film features news, reviews, interviews and a special UK update each Friday.
Gaming
The Independent Gaming Source A great place to pick up on tomorrow's breakthrough Xbox Live Arcade, WiiWare and PSN hits.
Geek squad
Here be programmers …
Government/public services/politics
Recycle Now Winner after a slight false start of the government'sShow Us A Better Way competition. What can you recycle close by?
British and Irish Legal Information Institute A database of laws. Only survives hand-to-mouth on voluntary donations; where's yours?
What Do They Know? Makes filing a Freedom Of Information request as easy as sending an email. Too easy, some in power think.
They Work For You A site set up by volunteers to keep tabs on our elected members of parliament – and our unelected peers.
Link economy
With millions of links on the web, we all need sites for sharing the best ones.
Metafilter Living if isolated proof that a site can be successful without pictures or video, and can also host thoughtful conversations.
Slashdot Now looking venerable and old, but "News for nerds" site with a jokey name (/.) still attracts a big, and often knowledgable, audience.
Location, location
Services like these blossom with a mobile phone that can access the internet.
Dopplr "Share your future travel plans with friends and colleagues", then find out if others will be there too.
Maps
The flipside of location-based services: seeing where you are.
Money/finance/consumer fightback
We all need someone on our side.
Music
Offbeat
The Onion Still the satirical newspaper of record. If it's not in the Onion, it's probably happened.
B3TA Beyond classification; its forum has spawned many memes … and more than its fair share of trolls.
Photography
Reference
Wikipedia en.wikipedia.com the gradually growing user-edited encyclopaedia is Still a first port of call on most topics.
Internet Archive/Wayback Machine The web in aspic. Useful for research into how the web used to look.
Wikileaks Anonymous source of a huge range ofleaked documents. If you dig, there's something important there
Search
Google dominates but Bing is challenging, and Yahoo and Microsoft are left in the dust.
Social software
Two years ago it was nascent; now it's embedded in our culture. Chances are high you're a member of at least one, and perhaps all, of these sites.
Ning One place to start your own social network – just as Madonna did – though it has yet to really take off.
Travel
Expedia Still the daddy when it comes to travel sites, and particularly good if you can bundle a flight with a hotel and other services.
Twitter, and associated
Twitter has proved itself over and over this year, from the Chinese earthquke to the Mumbai attacks to the Madoff fraud as a vector for news.
Listorious Twitter lists make it simple to follow large groups of Twitter users, and Listorious makes it easy to find the best lists.
Video
Virtual worlds
Visual arts
Visualisation
Information is Beautiful Creating effective infographics is one of today's key skills, and on this site, it's also an art.
DabbleDB Create online databases and analyse them.
• Which essential sites have I missed? Tell us below........
• Which essential sites have I missed? Tell us below........
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