2008: The year according to the Web

[Captain Barbossa]

2008: The year according to the Web
Posted: December 30, 2008, 6:00 AM by Steven Woodhead Year in Review 2008

Web 2.0 has been expanding at such an astonishing pace the last few years that keeping up with the latest developments is, for some people, literally a full-time job.
Hardly a week goes by without some new online application floating across my radar that 124,878,936 people have already used, praised, and discarded with reckless abandon, like 6-year-olds rifling through a bottomless bowl of candy. Frankly, it's infuriating.
Related: The year reviewed in 7 ways
But it's also heartening, because these products are ubiquitous for a reason: they work, and they really do help to streamline our lives as we nestle ever further into the warm embrace of technology (although, frankly, I could do without a lowercase "i" being attached to everything except my bathroom appliances. Oh, wait...)

Some of these applications are just for fun, while others, when used effectively, can make a real difference. We've gathered up a few of the most important user-based Web applications of 2008, and examined how they've impacted the big issues.




Facebook
In case you haven't heard of it: Facebook is a website that allows users to build dossiers of information on themselves (including favourite music, hometowns, pictures, and videos) and communicate with others via posted messages or shared Internet links. That's being reductive for the sake of clarity, though: Facebook has grown into something far more organic since it's creation in 2004 — the myriad ways users can connect through Facebook is astounding. The website just implented a new feature this year that collects profiles for other users that you may not be "Friends" with yet, based on who your listed friends are connected to. Sound confusing? Well, maybe a little, but it's one of the hundred of processes that Facebook is quietly running in the background all the time.

Wha's the big deal?: Well, how about the Dalton McGuinty young driver legislation or the Carleton Students' Association fiasco? There are few issues or causes that won't pop up on Facebook eventually, drawing in thousands, or hundreds of thousands, in to shared groups to get their voices heard. It was enough to reverse McGuinty's decision to impose tougher licensing guidelines on Ontario teens.
Fast Facts: Courtesy of Facebook's stats page.

• More than 140 million active users
• Though it was originally only for college students, more than half of Facebooks users come from outside of college or university.
• There are more than 700 million photos uploaded to the site every month.
• 2.6 billion minutes are spent on Facebook EACH DAY.

Twitter
In case you haven't heard of it: Twitter is another social network (users can build profiles for themselves) but it's far more useful as a micro-blogging tool. Think of it as text-messaging in webpage form — users have a paltry 140 characters to send messages to their friends and contacts updating them on what they're doing RIGHT THAT SECOND.
What's the big deal?: It sounds insignificant — really, who wants to be constantly receiving messages all day that might potentially be nothing more than "Long line at Tim Horton's this morning"? Well, folks in Mumbai definitely had something to say on November 26, and people around the world wanted to hear it. The website blew up with activity on the night of the terrorist attack, with users in India updating as fast as they could with rumors, photos, and prayers for the safe return of their family. Don't kid yourself; the information coming from Twitter was far faster than the information coming from your local news network. Ditto for the Universite du Quebec at Montreal shooter scare that occurred in mid-December.
Fast Facts: Top Five most popular Twitter users as of Dec. 18, courtesy of TwitterCounter.com

1. Barack Obama (151,006)
2. Kevin Rose - Digg founder (79,866)
3. cnnbrk - Breaking news updates from CNN (69,415)
4. leolaporte - Journalist specializing in technology coverage (67,454)
5. JasonCalacanis - Former Netscape GM, and current CEO of Mahalo.com (45,026)

Digg
In case you haven't heard of it: Digg.com is a website where users can upload stories, webpages or links for others to view. To put it simply, if you see a news story from NationalPost.com that you find absolutely riveting, you can put it up on Digg for others to see. Based on how many times that story is "Dugg", it moves up the list. Eventually, it can make it to the front page of the website, where it's popularity will explode.
What's the big deal?: The Internet is about speed, and Digg is simply a faster way for news stories to travel. If you're wondering what the biggest news story of the day might be, you can skip the garish red headlines over at Drudge and head for Digg. Anything on the top of their list is probably generating a lot of buzz.
Fast Facts: A few of the Most Dugg stories from the last 365 days, courtesy of Digg.com

• The two Most Dugg deaths are George Carlin (20,298 Diggs) and Heath Ledger (22,971).
• The Most Dugg story of the year is titled "Digg This If You Voted For Obama!!" (Digg loves being self-referential). The link heads out to CNN's real-time election results from Nov. 4. The story garnered over 36,000 Diggs.
• The Most Dugg video of the year was "Ninja Cat Comes Closer While Not Moving!". People and their cats, man.

Flickr
In case you haven't heard of it: Flickr is the biggest photo-hosting website online (with the exception of perhaps Facebook, but Flickr is a photo-only website, not necessarily a social networking one — it's kind of a gray area), and a huge hit with professional and amateur bloggers alike. That's because Flickr allows users to upload hi-resolution photos and gives each photo it's own URL for easy embedding. It's also a simple way to share slideshows of your 25th anniversary trip to the Grand Canyon.
What's the big deal?: Besides showing little sign of slowing down, Flickr is also advancing citizen journalism by doing exactly what it was designed to do: make photos available fast and for free. That was the principle that drove one Flickr user, Vinu, into media pages after he immediately began posting his own photos from the Mumbai terrorist attack.

Fast Facts: Flickr passed a big milestone on November 3: it's 3 billionth photo.



YouTube
In case you haven't heard of it: It would take a novel to really describe the effect that the Google-owned YouTube has had on the way we experience the world (not to mention the Internet), but for the sake of little Johnny who just bought his first computer: YouTube is a video-hosting and sharing website, where Internet users can upload videos (homemade and otherwise) to widespread viewing. In 2005, Google bought the service for 1.65 billion dollars. And, like any other good Web 2.0 application, it's free of charge.
What's the big deal?: Every major news story from this year, and likely from years past, will have a video on YouTube. "Viral videos" describes videos that have achieved an intense amount of fame in a very short period of time, being viewed by millions of people, usually for entertainment purposes. For example, the most-watched YouTube video of all time was, for a long time, "The Evolution of Dance". Last year, Avril Lavigne's music video for "Boyfriend" knocked it off the list with 110,000,000 views. YouTube is also a handy tool for democracy, given the recent trend of citizen-submitted questions to political leaders via YouTube (see the CNN-YouTube presidential debates of 2007). See our other post, which sums up the news of 2008 in video form.

Fast Facts: So, what were the most-viewed YouTube videos of this year? Top was Miley Cyrus's "7 Things" music video, with over 53,000,000 views. Actually, all the top videos of 2008 were music videos, proving once and for all that the Internet is a tool of the devil and is leading our children astray.


Other fun stuff:
Technorati: The Web 2.0 veteran (and still-popular) Technorati is a blog surfing tool that has indexed over 110 million blogs to date. Users can add their own personal blogs to the site's list by embedding a small bit of code, in an effort to drive up their views. The site keeps a running list of the most popular blogs and search items.

• As of December 18, the top 5 user-rated blogs at Technorati are Boing Boing, Pro-Blogger, TechCrunch, Lifehacker and Engadget.
• The top 5 searches are "taskbar", "news", "environment", "Jennifer Garner" and "men"

Skype: This program allows users to make telephone calls over the Internet (read: free of charge). If you have a microphone attached to your computer and a fairly speedy connection, you're good to go. The site is constantly updating the program to fix bugs and glitches, but it's fast becoming a must-have tool for people on the go, business conferencing and, in the case of Oprah, interviewing.


SeeqPod: It's not exactly Web 2.0 (users don't do a lot of direct uploading), but it rides on the back on hundreds of other Web 2.0 applications. Put simply, SeeqPod allows users to listen to any song they wish by surfing the net for you and finding the audio file from a different website. No downloading capabilities yet, but it's a mainstay on desktops in workplaces across the world — an easy way to access a personal radio station quickly and easily. Another nice bonus is the ability to create playlists and email them to friends.

[Guess Who Batman]

Aha, Boyfriend. New song?

[Camber239]

Boyfriend
t4p

[catatoniaone]

"Boyfriend "because thats the name of the Rubinoos song - its just a dig at Avril saying she ripped it off without actually saying she ripped it off , a bit of a lame joke