Then earlier this year, frankly, it got boring.

More sites than ever were being launched, but they were all so samey – nothing new, nothing interesting – just variations on a theme: local stuff, event planning, a social network for yet another niche, digg clones, sharing opinions, map mashups, and more bloody widgets than you could shake a stick at.

But in the last couple of days two things have really grabbed my attention.

They’re technologies really, but ones with really clear applications that I think will have a profound effect on the way web companies conduct their business, probably on a par with AJAX. I’m serious – this is really exciting stuff.

1. Google Gears - take your application offline (in a good way).
2. Facebook Platform - reach the social masses – the network is now a commodity.

I’ll post a some more in depth information soon, but in the meantime take a look and have a think about they could apply to your business. If you’re not a techie yourself but you have developers working for you, then get them to have a nosey for you.

If you’re not interested, then you’ve probably only just woken up to social networking – sorry, you missed the boat!

For help on web technology and business strategy, or just for somebody to bounce ideas off, do give me a call.

PS: Fairly unrelated to the web, but Microsoft Surface got me quite excited too…

Google Gears is an open source browser extension that enables web applications to provide offline functionality using JavaScript APIs.  These will allow web-based applications to store data locally using a fully-searchable relational database (powered by SQLite), with full use of AJAX.

The first Google app to get the offline treatment will be their RSS feed reader.

BrandRepublic have some good coverage of the new Facebook Platform launch. Their API has been around a while and lets third parties develop applications that interact with facebook data and functions, but the Platform goes beyond this. Facebook Platform lets you build applications that live within facebook. Facebook is the platform. And with the site growing very fast now, it will be the platform if you want to build an application that lets people interact with the friends. Otherwise you’re just re-inventing the wheel and forcing users to re-create their friend networks all over again.

On second thoughts, forget Facebook being the new Google. Perhaps it’s the new Internet? (Albeit a privately owned Internet…)

Mashable have very kindly created a list of 30+ Facebook Platform applications available now, which include some of the usual web 2.0 suspects such as iLike and Magnolia, but some old schoolers are playing too, such as Forbes.com.

Event & party planning

• SetDot - party/event invite tool – it’s in private beta, but you can sign up for an invite. Not had a chance to play properly but first impressions are good – it’s basically a better version evite.com
• Socializr – awful looking ‘event and party sharing’ site… apparently created by the founder of friendster and has had some good press, but it looks like it was designed (I use the term loosly) by a perl hacker.
• Renkoo – cutesy looking event planning with email, IM and SMS integration, which helps you get together with your existing friends – social events where you know who you want to hang out with, but you don’t know when and where. Unfortunately it looks like it was designed for five-year-olds.
• Evite – the ‘original’ event planning and party invite site – and as such it’s a bit more web 1.0 than 2.0… but it’s still more popular than the new up-starts.
• Planyp.us – it’s got the silly name, so plus points there and it definitely looks the part with lots of shiny and rounded corners. It works by notifying your friends by email, sms, rss, or by integrating into your online homepages and calendaring tools, so everyone always knows what’s going on.
• EventWax – more about organising semi-pro events than personal parties – it lets you create e-tickets (free or paid) and manage your attendee list – it’s a kind of CRM for event organisers and works very well indeed.
• UpComing – a community for discovering and sharing events – to find stuff to do, discover what your friends are doing, or let you keep private events online for your own reference. It was bought by Yahoo a couple of a years ago and last week they relaunched a new version with Yahoo integration.
• BestPartyEver – event planning tool with a focus on helping you find ‘party vendors’ – eg venues, DJs, caterers, party supplies and fancy dress – and with a database of 88,000 vendors in the US they should be able to help!

Recommendations – social shopping, recipes, places, etc

• GroupRecipes – a recipe sharing community site, its USP being their “food prediction algorithm” which suggests recipes based on your tastes – a kind of StumbleUpon for recipes.
• TrustedPlaces – a London-centric community for those with or seeking opinions about places – often restaurants, bars, etc.
• TrustedOpinion – shared recommendations from friends on a wide variety of subjects – movies, nightclubs and restaurants for example.
• CrowdStorm – a start-up from the founder of Kelkoo UK, CrowdStorm is a social shopping network that helps you find what to buy by measuring the buzz around products, and by getting recommendations from friends. They define buzz as reflection of the interest the community shows in a product, as determined by the activity (ie recommendations) around that product. And an excuse to get attractive girlies wearing bee costumes…

Media Sharing

• ShareA – a privacy centred online community for sharing photos, blogs, videos etc, securely.
• PikSpot – social media sharing but focused around ‘groups’. Shows how the same tools can power quite different sites (aka groups) eg YouLaf and UndoTV. Unfortunately for you, it’s in private beta.
• Yedda - a questions and answers site, similar to Yahoo Answers, except it apparently personalises topics for you and pro-actively seeks answers.
• DrumTable – aimed at people in their ’second half of life’ who want to share their life experiences through stories, images and videos. Sounds a bit boring to me.

Health, moms, etc

• RevolutionHealth – AOL founder Steve Case’s health community site. If you’ve ever wondered what a $125m website looks like, this is it… It came out of beta last week with some well made tweaks.
• CafeMom – yet another community for moms… but quite well executed.
• OrganizedWizdom – health-focused social networking site with doctor-reviewed information on 6,5000 subjects supplemented by user-generated ‘wisdomcards’ – inspirational stories, practical health tips and actionable wisdom that usually comes from first-hand experience or deep knowledge of diseases, conditions, medications or health procedures.

Applications

• Twitter - on the one hand, a piece of frivolity for you to update your friends on what you’re doing every 5 minutes – on the other hand, a powerful platform integrating SMS messaging, Instant Messaging , Email and web based updates. Touted as the next flickr.
• FotoWoosh – web based system to convert 2D photos into 3D worlds – looks totally amazing but you have to take their word for it at the moment as it’s in private beta – but check out the video.
• CrazyEgg – website user tracking tool which lets you visualise exactly where people are clicking on your site. Tools like this can be incredibly useful for improving usability and information architecture but used to come at a premium. CrazyEgg is one of many start-ups in the space but is apparently one of the best.

Music

• NoiseTap – a music community owned by TicketMaster, with digg-style voting, the aim being to share the latest news, rumours and opinions.
• iLike - Social Music Discovery, a bit like last.fm, the difference being iLike has an artist community called GarageBand

Social networks

• NurseLinkup – the first of apparently 500 websites that social networking company itLinkz plans to launch, each centred around a certain demographic, profession or interest group.
• UbiPlanet – a social network targeted at those who want to communicate with existing friends rather than the wider web, developed in France but also (mostly) available in English.

If you’d like to keep an eye on all the Web 2.0 startups then check out Go2Web20.net, Dexly.com and Mashable.com – but be warned, there are dozens of new sites launching every day and nearly all of them are worth watching..

More next month!

For many of us, the thought of not having to create new usernames and passwords evokes images of the heavens parting and angels trumpeting.

One of the major talking points at last week’s Future of Web Apps Conference was OpenID – in fact Kevin Rose of digg.com announced at the conference that they are planning to adopt it.  Microsoft and AOL have both already announced their support.

I was going to do a write up to explain why OpenID gaining traction could herald the next semi-revolution, but over at the AOL developer network they’ve written an excellent article called OpenID and the Value of Connected Identity. In summary:

• OpenID allows you to securely log in to a website without having to create a new username or password.
• You can keep your identity information in the place you choose without trusting the next random start-up with your password – you can even run your own server.
• There’s no need to worry about your preferred login name not being available – it’s a URL so it is always uniquely your identity - eg http://claimID.com/paullomax.

And just to prove it’s going to go mainstream, The Times Online also has a write-up – although their strap includes a word that is almost the antithesis of OpenID [my emphasis] :

Companies are competing to introduce a single, secure login that would work for all bank accounts, shopping sites and other web activities.

I think OpenID really does have a future, particularly once it goes to 2.0 which promises to solve a few of the potential issues such as phishing and generally making the whole system a bit easier from a user perspective.

Social Networking
Connecting with friends and whatnot

• www.myspace.com – music geeks, teens and wannabe models

• www.bebo.com – kids and teens

• www.vox.com – a bit of culture – travel, photography, books, art and music

• www.friendster.com – actually owns the patent for social networks

• www.orcut.com – a Google project, full of Brazilians for some reason

• www.facebook.com – student central

• www.faceparty.com – thinly veiled ‘pick up’ site

• www.linkedin.com – social networking for business contacts

• www.boompa.com – social networking for petrol heads

• www.mybloglog.com – adds a community to your blog

• www.deviantart.com - photography and all kinds of art

• www.minti.com, www.parentsconnect.com, www.mothersclick.com, www.momjunction.com, www.parentography.com, www.mommybuzz.com, www.famundo.com, www.mayasmom.com - parenting is a popular subject!

• www.fygo.com, www.zopa.com, www.prosper.com  – social lending, borrow from people, not banks

Social News
News by the people for the people 

• www.digg.com  – the biggest, full of geeks but covers many subjects
• www.slashdot.com – web1.0 survivor and the original article – but only tech
• www.inform.com - world affairs and politics specialist
• www.newsvine.com – also a serious slant – the pitch is you create your own ‘column’ 

Social Bookmarking / Search
Not only can you keep your bookmarks in one place, you can see other people’s fave sites 

• del.icio.us – market leader despite the name, now part of Yahoo. Simple but limited.
• ma.gnolia.com – similar to delicious but arguably easier to use
• www.searchles.com – blend of delicious and dig
• www.lijit.com - search people’s blogs
• www.ozmozr.com – share RSS feeds (I think, it doesn’t explain itself too well!)
• www.stumbleupon.com – been around a surprisingly long time, useful toolbar 

Media Sharing
Searching for ‘funny cats’ on youtube is an hour’s entertainment 

• www.emokoo.com – merges your youtube videos and flickr photos in one place
• www.dailymotion.com – an alternative to youtube
• www.youtube.com - video sharing market leader
• www.brightcove.com – another youtube alternative
• www.flickr.com – one of the most well known photo sharing sites
• www.piczo.com – make your own web pages and rate other people’s – aimed squarely at kids 

Localisation
Making the global village local 

• www.craigslist.com – the bane of regional newspapers, free local classifieds online
• www.backfence.com – run your own online “hyperlocal” newspaper 

Knowledge Sharing
Share your experiences, expertise, thoughts, or anything really 

• www.tripadvisor.com – review your hotel, destination and holiday
• www.corkd.com, labels.winelibrary.com, www.bottletalk.com  – wine reviews
• answers.yahoo.com – ask questions, get answers from people – useful when their search engine gives you crap results
• www.squidoo.com – apparently you share your specialist info through “lenses”. I had to go to the New York Times to understand what it was…
• www.iqons.com, www.shareyourlook.com, www.shoutfit.com, www.stylehive.com, www.stylespy.net  - share your look / celeb looks/ fashion tips 

Blogging
Blogging is one of the web2.0 cornerstones – making the Internet a truly read/write medium 

• www.travbuddy.com – travel blogging
• www.wordpress.com – blogging application
• www.blogger.com  – blogging app from Google
• www.moveabletype.com – blogging application
• www.livejournal.com – the original social blog
• www.vox.com – kind of social networking too, but does have photo galleries etc
• www.xanga.com  –another blogging community site
• www.gather.com  – incentivised  blogging, ‘for adults’  

Start pages
Make these your homepage and you’re one click from all your favourite content 

• www.google.com/ig – Google Homepage
• www.netvibes.com   – overwhelming
• www.protopage.com – ugly!
• www.schmedley.com – influenced by Mac OS X Widgets
• www.pageflakes.com -  v pretty but didn’t actually work for me 

Widgets & Symbiotic sites
Making stuff to stick on other sites 

• www.stickam.com – add a live webcam to your blog etc
• www.zingfu.com , www.ibubble.com – add frames, speech bubbles, etc to photos
• www.photobucket.com – image hosting for myspace etc
• www.coolmyspacecomments.com – lets you embed really annoying crap in comments
• www.kwiz.biz – bloody awful looking quiz generator for myspace etc
• www.meebo.com, www.ebuddy.com  – instant messenger on your site
• www.slide.com, www.rockyou.com  – put photo slideshows on your myspace profile
• www.feedburner.com – track your RSS feeds and more
• www.musestorm.com – make widgets from your RSS feeds
• www.zwinky.com, www.weemee.com, www.meez.com  – avatar creators 

Web Based Applications
Stuff that might put Bill Gates out of a job? 

• docs.google.com – Google takes on Word, Excel and Outlook Calendar
• www.basecamphq.com – online collaboration tool
• www.stikkit.com - web based sticky notes
• www.8apps.com – more collaboration tools, with built in social networking
• www.famundo.com – get your family organised
• www.singshot.com – online karaoke

Social Music
Share your music, and your tastes – legally!

• last.fm – simply amazing – free radio and it learns what you like!

Any community site or personal web pages that can accept HTML snippets can use abazab. For example, a member of a community site can use her phone to send video of a concert as it’s happening back to her personal page, allowing her friends to share in that experience just moments after it occurred. Her friends can access that rich content from the widget through any web-enabled PC, Mac or PDA. In turn, they can post their own rich media responses via computer, PDA or camera phone. No software or plug-in is needed.

Press release at http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060504/sfth058.html?.v=54.

I swear by the google homepage these days to keep on top of the dozens of blogs and news sources I read. Annoyingly quite a few have been saying ‘information unavailable’ of late, but I’m wondering if that’s just for people who do RSS through feedburner. So I may have to look into this API further. Google have built a couple of examples to show what it can do.

UPDATE: I switched in 2007!