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Web 2.0 winners and losers

Bart Sharkey

Bart Sharkey

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The viral growth of Web 2.0 sites and apps has seen some incredible innovation as mobs of freshly graduated geeks dive head first in to new technologies and languages in the quest to attract the masses as well as the millions that will make them the next Bill Gates. While the cream of the crop has been hitting the headlines, there have been many ideas that are so far outside the box that they can’t even see it anymore! That’s the premise for a recent Wired News Rant and Rave based on a poll taken of Web 2.0 winners and losers.

Of course Flickr comes in as a clear winner with its friendly design, buzzing community and open API. Not far behind is another Yahoo! owned venture – del.icio.us, which really defines what social bookmarking is all about. The number of downloadable plug-ins and add-ons for these winners is testament to their success, something that can’t be said for the “Web 2.0 Losers”, most notably myspace.com. Blasted for its “clunky interface and intrusive advertising”, Myspace somehow became popular while going against just about every convention of Web 2.0. As for wacky ideas, how about fo.rtuito.us, the social network that didn’t bother joining people of common interests but went down the random path with disastrous results. Sticking two complete strangers together for four days to see if they hit it off was more of a Big Brother approach and as with the TV show, it wasn’t a pretty sight.

For me though, a whopping great omission was made by not including the phenomenal last.fm – a site that unites music lovers (and there are a few of them) in the search for audio enlightenment by way of their own personalised and perfect music stream. Finally the clear proof that Web 2.0 has not been a waste of time.

Bart Sharkey

Bart Sharkey

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