Top 5 Web Applications of 2004 | December 22, 2004
With new web applications like Flickr and Del.icio.us debuting this year, along with the redesign of old favourites such as Blogger, 2004 seems to have been the year of the web application.
Here are my top five web applications of 2004. What are yours?
- Gmail - Not that I actually use my Gmail account much, but you have to admit that Gmail feaver hit the blogsphere hard with all kinds of sites giving away free accounts. I hope the person who came up with that idea gets a big fat bonus this Christmas.
- Browsercam - I don’t think this site was new for 2004, but that’s when I first discovered and started using it. I used to use Virtual PC to do my testing, but these days Browsercam just seems more convenient. Not only can you test your designs on around 30 browser/platform combinations, but using their Java VNC client you can preview the whole site on any browser you want. Cool
- Stock.xchng - Great source of free (as in Beer) stock photography.
- Gravatar - This isn’t a service I actually use, but I do think it’s quite a cool idea, and it seems to be taking off amongst the cool blogging set.
- Google Suggest - Sneaking in at the last minute, I really love Googles new Suggest feature, which puts XMLHttpRequest to good use.
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Gmail - definately
Gravitar - Just wobbled but its back!
Textpattern - Simply excellent!
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Yup, what he said!
I use my gmail account heavily and it is just brilliant, especially the sorting of emails in conversational threads… life saver!
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I think gmail is great just for the fact it boosted everyones views on storage space. Places like hotmail, yahoo, web servers and free hosting no longer offer users 2mb of space :)
I’m going to check out your browser tester thing, sounds good
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Firefox 1.0 and all the extensions I use, especially the Lorum Ipsum generator and Web Dev toolbar.
Still not got GMail as I’m paranoid about the security aspects of it so my vote goes for the excellent Yahoo Mail (I also really like their latest redesign).
WordPress and all the lovely hacking you can do with it.
Gravatars because its a nifty idea that needs support.
Can’t think of a fifth :o(
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Oh yeah, I know FF isn’t strictly a web app but well the extensions sort of are and you need FF to use the extensions.
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Basecamp has to be on my list. Without a doubt.
Textpattern would certainly be on there too.
However, I’m not sure that the Google Suggest interface qualifies as an app in its own right. It’s more a innovative feature of one of the greatest web apps of all time - Google.
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Wordpress, Basecamp, Gravatar, SPG 1.1, Google.
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b2evolution is on my list. It’s an excellent PHP/MySql/XHTML weblog software, open source with multiblog/multiuser-support.
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I use gmail daily and del.icio.us often. I’d use Flickr if I had a camera, haha. I just started to try out 43things. Pretty cool. And yeah, gravatar does look interesting.
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Here are my Top 5 nominees (in order):
Building on the idea that the interface is the software, all of the above web applications have redefined the the typical interface with great success. I think we’ll see more and more of truly well-designed, user-centric interfaces in 2005.
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Gmail, Flickr, del.iciou.us, Basecamp, and The New Blogger top my list.
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Oh, just thought of another, but I’m not sure if it came out in 2004 or not: Bloglines. I use it everyday — not sure how I forgot it.
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Great list! … but I’d trade all five of those for Bloglines any day of the week and twice on Sundays!
Bloglines rules.
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In 2004, WordPress became the easiest blogging engine available, in my humble opinion. Not as complete as MT, but less complex. I also love the idea behind Gravatar
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In no particular order: Gmail, Thunderbird, Firefox, TextPattern
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Here’s my list:- GMail
- WordPress
- del.icio.us
- stock.xchng
- RSS feeds
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flickr
basecamp
wordpress
firefox and all the extras
and flickr again.
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