Top 10 Web Apps

Every year at ReadWriteWeb, we look at hundreds of new web apps aimed at everyday users. Occasionally, we come across a service that stands out from the pack because it offers a novel solution, disrupts the way incumbent market leaders do business or changes the way we experience the Web.
Here is our list of the top 10 consumer web apps of 2009. These are apps and services that helped consumers use the web in new ways this year; and brought technologies that were previously only geared towards advanced users to a mainstream audience.
Some of these apps aren't new - but just like last year, we've tried to select a mix of applications that either reached the mainstream this year, or that we think will be big in the year to come.

ReadWriteWeb's Best Products of 2009:

1. Top 10 Mobile Web Products
2. Top 10 Consumer Web Apps
3. Top 10 Semantic Web Products
4. Top 10 International Web Products
5. Top 10 RSS & Syndication Technologies
6. Top 10 Enterprise Products
7. Top 10 Internet of Things Products
8. Top 10 Real-Time Technologies
9. Top 10 Startup Products
10. Top 10 Web Platforms

Bing

Until earlier this year, Google didn't have any serious competition in the search market. Now, however, thanks to Microsoft's Bing - which launched in July - users finally have a choice when it comes to search engines. Bing's market share climbed steadily over the last few months, and Microsoft keeps adding interesting new features like visual search, hover previews, integrated Twitter search and a smart integration of some of Wolfram Alpha's most compelling features.
Bing, which bills itself as a "decision engine," tries to give its users more than just 10 links. Instead, Bing focuses on giving users answers right on the search results page. A search for a football or baseball player, for example, will bring up recent stats, while a search for flights brings up data from Microsoft's Bing Travel service.

Wolfram Alpha

No other new web service was greeted with the same amount of hype as Wolfram Alpha this year. Inevitably, Wolfram Research's "computational knowledge engine" disappointed many who were looking for a Google killer, but Alpha introduced a new paradigm for search engines: Instead of giving you a long list of links, Alpha tries to give users an answer based on information from reputable sources. If this sounds familiar, it might be because Microsoft's Bing is trying to do something very similar - even if Microsoft's approach isn't quite as radical. Because of these similarities, it also doesn't come as a surprise that Bing was the first search engine to integrate search results from Wolfram Alpha.
While it isn't useful for everybody yet, the Wolfram Alpha team has worked hard to expand Alpha's knowledge. If you are an engineer or scientist, Wolfram Alpha might just be the most useful web app for you. For the rest of us, Alpha's ability to solve anagrams, aggregate weather data and tell you the distance between two cities proves to be useful, too, though not as useful as the service's ability to solve complex math problems. We still have to wait and see what the future holds for Wolfram Alpha.
For now, the service is a great experiment and even if it fails (which we don't think it will), its influence will surely extend to other search engines like Bing and Google Search. In the spirit of trying something different, Wolfram also launched a $50 iPhone application in October. Even though Wolfram Alpha's web interface is available for free, the company insisted that its mobile application offered enough new features to justify this price.

Google Chrome

Google launched the first beta version of Google Chrome in late 2008. Even though Chrome still only holds a small share of the browser market and doesn't offer a stable version for OSX or Linux yet, Chrome has already changed the browser market. Chrome's relentless focus on speed helped to reignite the browser wars and even Microsoft now compares the performance of the next version of Internet Explorer to Chrome. Thanks to its fast JavaScript rendering engine and interesting new technologies, Chrome is changing the way developers are thinking about browsers. Even if you don't use Chrome, you will see Chrome's influence in the upcoming versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer.
Chrome, of course, is also the basis for Google's upcoming Chrome OS, so chances are that we will see a lot more of Chrome in the next year.

Posterous

Whether you want to open up a new blog without any fuzz or just share photos and messages easily on multiple services like Facebook, Flickr and Twitter, light blogging service Posterous has you covered. The service launched in May 2009 and was definitely one of the most interesting new arrivals in the blogging landscape this year. What makes Posterous stand out is its ability to cross-post updates to other services (Flickr, Facebook, Twitter or your own blog, for example). In addition, it's also extremely easy to set up a new blog. Just email a message, photo or video to post AT posterous.com and your new blog is ready to go. Advanced users can also port their own domain names to the service and theme their blogs.
With PicPosterous, the company now also offers an easy to use iPhone app.

Hulu

Thanks to its prominent ads during the Super Bowl, Hulu became a household name in the US this year. Even before this publicity campaign, however, Hulu had already established itself as a the #1 destination for finding episodes of TV shows online. Hulu started out as a joint venture between FOX, NBC and other TV networks. In April, ABC also joined this group. Thanks to this, Hulu now offers one of the only destinations to easily find TV shows online in the US. While Hulu is currently available for free, it's worth noting that Hulu could start charging for subscriptions as early as next year.http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_10_consumer_web_apps_of_2009.php
04/03/10

Mac OS reviews

In June of 2004, during the WWDC keynote address, Steve Jobs revealed Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger to developers and the public for the first time. When the finished product arrived in April of 2005, Tiger was the biggest, most important, most feature-packed release in the history of Mac OS X by a wide margin. Apple's marketing campaign reflected this, touting "over 150 new features."
All those new features took time. Since its introduction in 2001, there had been at least one major release of Mac OS X each year. Tiger took over a year and a half to arrive. At the time, it definitely seemed worth the wait. Tiger was a hit with users and developers. Apple took the lesson to heart and quickly set expectations for the next major release of Mac OS X, Leopard. Through various channels, Apple communicated its intention to move from a 12-month to an 18-month release cycle for Mac OS X. Leopard was officially scheduled for "spring 2007."
As the date approached, Apple's marketing machine trod a predictable path.

Steve Jobs at WWDC 2007, touting 300 new features in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

Apple even went so far as to list all 300 new features on its website. As it turns out, "spring" was a bit optimistic. Leopard actually shipped at the end of October 2007, nearly two and a half years after Tiger. Did Leopard really have twice as many new features as Tiger? That's debatable. What's certain is that Leopard included a solid crop of new features and technologies, many of which we now take for granted. (For example, have you had a discussion with a potential Mac user since the release of Leopard without mentioning Time Machine? I certainly haven't.)
Mac OS X appeared to be maturing. The progression was clear: longer release cycles, more features. What would Mac OS X 10.6 be like? Would it arrive three and a half years after Leopard? Would it and include 500 new features? A thousand?
At WWDC 2008, Bertrand Serlet announced a move that he described as "unprecedented" in the PC industry.

Mac OS X 10.6 - Read Bertrand's lips: No New Features!

That's right, the next major release of Mac OS X would have no new features. The product name reflected this: "Snow Leopard." Mac OS X 10.6 would merely be a variant of Leopard. Better, faster, more refined, more... uh... snowy.
This was a risky strategy for Apple. After the rapid-fire updates of 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3 followed by the riot of new features and APIs in 10.4 and 10.5, could Apple really get away with calling a "time out?" I imagine Bertrand was really sweating this announcement up on the stage at WWDC in front of a live audience of Mac developers. Their reaction? Spontaneous applause. There were even a few hoots and whistles.
Many of these same developers applauded the "150+ new features" in Tiger and the "300 new features" in Leopard at past WWDCs. Now they were applauding zero new features for Snow Leopard? What explains this?
It probably helps to know that the "0 New Features" slide came at the end of an hour-long presentation detailing the major new APIs and technologies in Snow Leopard. It was also quickly followed by a back-pedaling ("well, there is one new feature...") slide describing the addition of Microsoft Exchange support. In isolation, "no new features" may seem to imply stagnation. In context, however, it served as a developer-friendly affirmation.
The overall message from Apple to developers was something like this: "We're adding a ton of new things to Mac OS X that will help you write better applications and make your existing code run faster, and we're going to make sure that all this new stuff is rock-solid and as bug-free as possible. We're not going to overextend ourselves adding a raft of new customer-facing, marketing-friendly features. Instead, we're going to concentrate 100% on the things that affect you, the developers."
But if Snow Leopard is a love letter to developers, is it a Dear John letter to users? You know, those people that the marketing department might so crudely refer to as "customers." What's in it for them? Believe it or not, the sales pitch to users is actually quite similar. As exhausting as it has been for developers to keep up with Apple's seemingly never-ending stream of new APIs, it can be just as taxing for customers to stay on top of Mac OS X's features. Exposé, a new Finder, Spotlight, a new Dock, Time Machine, a new Finder again, a new iLife and iWork almost every year, and on and on. And as much as developers hate bugs in Apple's APIs, users who experience those bugs as application crashes have just as much reason to be annoyed.
Enter Snow Leopard: the release where we all get a break from the new-features/new-bugs treadmill of Mac OS X development. That's the pitch.

Uncomfortable realities

But wait a second, didn't I just mention an "hour-long presentation" about Snow Leopard featuring "major new APIs and technologies?" When speaking to developers, Apple's message of "no new features" is another way of saying "no new bugs." Snow Leopard is supposed to fix old bugs without introducing new ones. But nothing says "new bugs, coming right up" quite like major new APIs. So which is it?
Similarly, for users, "no new features" connotes stability and reliability. But if Snow Leopard includes enough changes to the core OS to fill an hour-long overview session at WWDC more than a year before its release, can Apple really make good on this promise? Or will users end up with all the disadvantages of a feature-packed release like Tiger or Leopard—the inevitable 10.x.0 bugs, the unfamiliar, untried new functionality—but without any of the actual new features?
Yes, it's enough to make one quite cynical about Apple's real motivations. To throw some more fuel on the fire, have a look at the Mac OS X release timeline below. Next to each release, I've included a list of its most significant features.

Mac OS X release timeline

That curve is taking on a decidedly droopy shape, as if it's being weighed down by the ever-increasing number of new features. (The releases are distributed uniformly on the Y axis.) Maybe you think it's reasonable for the time between releases to stretch out as each one brings a heavier load of goodies than the last, but keep in mind the logical consequence of such a curve over the longhorn haul.
And yeah, there's a little upwards kick at the end for 10.6, but remember, this is supposed to be the "no new features" release. Version 10.1 had a similar no-frills focus but took a heck of a lot less time to arrive.
Looking at this graph, it's hard not to wonder if there's something siphoning resources from the Mac OS X development effort. Maybe, say, some project that's in the first two or three major releases of its life, still in that steep, early section of its own timeline graph. Yes, I'm talking about the iPhone, specifically iPhone OS. The iPhone business has exploded onto Apple's balance sheets like no other product before, even the iPod. It's also accruing developers at an alarming rate.
It's not a stretch to imagine that many of the artists and developers who piled on the user-visible features in Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5 have been reassigned to iPhone OS (temporarily or otherwise). After all, Mac OS X and iPhone OS share the same core operating system, the same language for GUI development, and many of the same APIs. Some workforce migration seems inevitable.
And let's not forget the "Mac OS X" technologies that we later learned were developed for the iPhone and just happened to be announced for the Mac first (because the iPhone was still a secret), like Core Animation and code signing. Such conspiracy theories certainly aren't helped by WWDC keynote snubs and other indignities suffered by Mac OS X and the Mac in general since the iPhone arrived on the scene. And so, on top of everything else, Snow Leopard is tasked with restoring some luster to Mac OS X.
Got all that? A nearly two-year development cycle, but no new features. Major new frameworks for developers, but few new bugs. Significant changes to the core OS, but more reliability. And a franchise rejuvenation with few user-visible changes.
It's enough to turn a leopard white.http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars
04/03/10

Microsoft Outlook 2007 features

If you depend upon Microsoft Outlook's e-mail and calendar, the 2007 version offers welcome changes that can save time and keep you on your toes. Microsoft renovated all of its Office applications for 2007, but many of these updates simply repackage existing features. By contrast, Outlook 2007 offers new features that could change the way you work. Admittedly, many of these tweaks are for ease of use and don't exactly reinvent this desktop e-mail client, but the changes enhance what Outlook already did well and make for a more elegant and practical experience overall.
Our installation of various Office editions on Windows XP computers took between 10 and 20 minutes, which was quicker than prior editions of Office. You'll have to be online to access services later, such as Help and How-To as well as Clip Art and document templates. Our review of Microsoft Office 2007 details the installation process and the ingredients of each edition. Under the hood, the Outlook Connector is mostly the same as in the past for setting up your e-mail. If you run Outlook 2007 on Windows XP, you'll either have to install its new Instant Search separately or keep the older search engine. Windows Vista users already have Instant Search through the included Windows Desktop Search.
Interface
Luckily for those upgrading, Microsoft has spiffed up the formerly drab, gray look of Outlook without rearranging most of its commands. Unlike the 2007 versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, Outlook 2007's main interface shuns the Ribbon toolbar and keeps its File, Edit, and other menus. That makes it easy to jump right in and start using Outlook 2007 if you're accustomed to an earlier version. The Ribbon emerges once you begin to compose a message or an appointment. Within the main window, a new, collapsible To-Do bar summarizes your current appointments and tasks for the day.

Outlook's new security settings block suspicious links and images.

When you compose an e-mail message, the tabbed Ribbon appears, allowing you to format the text as well as attach files, contacts, and images. A similar window appears when you schedule appointments, set up tasks, or edit individual contacts. Under the Options tab, you must choose HTML or Rich Text if you want to attach images. If you're working in plain text, the buttons for dressing up messages will fade. As with the layout of other Office 2007 programs, contextual tabs appear and disappear based upon your work at hand; for example, the picture-formatting menu shows up only once you've clicked on an image. Getting used to this can take some practice.
Features
After using Outlook 2007 for several weeks, we found it hard to return to Outlook 2003--largely because we'd grown used to the ease of dragging e-mails to the calendar and color-coding them for scheduling, as well as seeing each day's tasks appear within the calendar. These little changes can be a big deal if Outlook is your messaging and scheduling nerve center.
Items that you flag for follow up appear within the To-Do bar, and there's more flexibility in flagging. Just right-click the flag icon on an Outlook e-mail, and you can specify precisely when to follow up on a message. Forget to mark an item as complete? It rolls over to the next calendar day until you're finally finished. Right-click the rounded box that represents the Categories column for a specific e-mail message, and you can color-code a message with multiple colors. This allows you to view scheduled items as a "heat map" on the calendar for a quick visual signal of what's hot on your to-do list. You can also set a Quick Click for Outlook to label messages with the color of your choice by default when you click on its Categories box.
If you receive a message that sets off Outlook's alarm bells, the e-mail client prevents images and other suspicious content from loading until you allow it. Just click the warning message to open options for downloading the attached pictures and managing other security settings. When we clicked Change Automatic Download Settings from a suspicious Outlook e-mail message, we were taken to the Trust Center to pick which types of content to permit. Microsoft leaves the strictest settings on by default. You'll also receive a warning when you forward or reply to an e-mail message that Outlook's security settings have flagged.http://reviews.cnet.com/accounting-and-finance/microsoft-office-outlook-2007/4505-6405_7-32327610.html
04/4/10

Limewire pro and cons

From its start as a post-Napster clone to its leading role as the quintessential Gnutella client, LimeWire is the highest-profile P2P application. Version 5 re-envisions LimeWire for a Web 2.0 world, with an emphasis on sharing with friends, square buttons with rounded corners, and overall a cleaner interface.
Two search bars and two sidebars cap off the redesign. The uppermost search bar is the global search that scans what everybody is sharing over the P2P network, while the secondary one on the right searches your library. The sidebars are set up in a similar way. Both are on the left, with the outer one offering three options: your library, the global P2P network, and your friends. Click on My Library and your inner sidebar shows your collection of music, movies, and documents. The P2P Network option shows what you're uploading and downloading, while the Friends option lets you share your library specifically with your Google/Jabber contacts, which you can import. Search results can be presented in both the new Web 2.0-style that surfaces just the most relevant information, with an Information button to dive deeper or the "classic" spreadsheet view.
The Advanced Tools feature is also new, which lets power users drill down and get highly specific information about who they're connected to, similar to what's available from torrent clients. This data includes IP addresses, bandwidth, the program being used and its version. The new features and overall functionality make this by far the most mature version of LimeWire to date. Despite the typical performance flaws found in all file-sharing clients, this latest version continues to offer solid performance and good looks across the board.
Watch the CNET video review of LimeWire:

Publisher's description

From LimeWire : LimeWire is a P2P file-sharing application for all types of computer files, including music, video, pictures, games, and text documents. Other features include dynamic querying, file previews during download, advanced techniques for locating rare files, and an easy, clean user interface.
LimeWire's new spam blocker gets rid of junk results, and automatic updates will keep you sharing faster than ever with the latest version. You can search for Creative Commons and Weedshare licensed files, and publish your own creative works with Creative Commons licensing. LimeWire continues its guarantee of no adware or spyware. Includes built-in bittorent support.

What's new in this version:
Version 5.5.8 fix a bug in which an incomplete download sometimes wouldn't restart.