Powerful Web 2.0 Sites of 2010
Which web 2.0 site will succeed in 2010? Well… just take a look at the key elements that you have to keep in mind if you want to make it! In this article, we are going to see what some creative sites are doing to learn some stuff from them.
Note that most of these sites aren’t for everybody; they have their own targeted audience. Do you know which one is yours?
Anyway, one thing is clear: what they have in common
- They are simple and easy to use
- They are interactive
- They offer real-time solutions
- They are 100% free!
Newsmap
It’s true, Internet has a lot of information, but unfortunately much of it is garbage and you often don’t even know where to find valuable information. So what? What is really important? What is going on now throughout the world? Would you like to easily visualize what is happening at this moment?
Newsmap answers all those questions. It’s a simple application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator. You will just see what is really important.
- Simple: Bigger is the title, more articles were written on that topic. Subsequently, the story is more important.
- User-friendly: News story summaries and photos are revealed when hovering over the headlines.
- Shareable: It has usable URLs so it’s easy to bookmark and share.
- Customized: Fonts, colors, etc. can be customized once you login.
- Each color means a category like Business, Health, Entertainment or Sports; and each tone how new they are.
- You can choose which countries you’d like to see.
Crazy Blind Date
Potential dates are out there, sniffing around; so if you like having real blind dates, this site is just for you.
Having blind dates with total strangers at public places like bars and coffee shops could sound inappropriate or crazy for some people, but not for the most adventurous ones.
How does it work? You just sign in and fill out when you are free, and specify some details about your perfect date like the age, body type, level of education, etc. Even if you wanna meet a Latin guy in your area, you can do it too! Don’t forget to mention the type of date you’re looking for!
Finally, you play with the matching system without seeing ANY pictures or contacting people.
Interestingly, it’s quite reliable since you must include your mobile number to be contacted by the site and verify your identity with a text message. OK, you can breathe now!Interestingly, it’s quite reliable since you must include your mobile number to be contacted by the site and verify your identity with a text message. OK, you can breath now!
DailyLit
Wanna read a book, but feel that you don´t have enough time? Well, DailyLit.com has a great idea for you. It’s a site where you read short book installments by email or RSS feed little by little and 100% free! It features bestselling and award winning titles and over 1000 classic and contemporary books.
- You can be read books on your desktop, laptop or even mobile device like iPhone or Blackberry.
- Installments can be read in fewer than 5 minutes.
- You schedule when to receive installments. For example, at 6:00pm every weekday.
- It’s very easy to register and you can link your account with Twitter, Facebook. You can also tell your friends about a book and suggest they read it!
Musicovery
If you feel like discovering great music, Musicovery is a fantastic option for you. Musicovery is a great music-streaming site with a mood-ring interface that adapts your robot DJ’s musical taste.
It’s a completely interactive site where you just indicate your mood from dark to positive and from energetic to calm; and also the tempo you like from slow to fast. In addition, boxes allow you to choose genres from metal to classical music.
If you use the free registration, you can mark your favorite songs and band the ones you don’t like to ever hear them again!
Qik
Qik is a powerful, easy-to-use site that enables you to stream live video and share every-day life experiences in real-time from your cell phone with your friends, family and even the whole world. You can broadcast live footage online via a fast 3G connection or over Wi-Fi.
You can sign into this great Web site using your Facebook or Twitter login. Then, you choose your phone brand, model and number…and Whoo-Hoo! Luckily, you can send out live updates instantly to your friends on your favorite social networking sites on Facebook, Twitter, your Windows Live page, and so on. And your friends can interact with you too!
Yeah, it’s a fact that Qik offers many ways to enable you to share your videos anywhere very easily! It is also available for download from the iPhone App Store.
Last but not least, we are going to see two opinions on these Web sites from a Web design perspective.
Yellow Sensation’s thoughts:
“At first glance we can differentiate these sites in terms of technology for its development. Newsmap and Musicovery are sites in Flash/Actionscript, and the rest of the sites used xhtml/css.
Carrying out a general analysis (without considering factors such as usability or the purpose of each site), we can recognize different styles of design. On one hand, from an experimental aesthetic we see newsmap.jp, which is a site that is maybe saturated with information and the compilation of news from different countries. On the other hand, we can see a much more minimalist style like Musicovery. Although both sites use the current programming techniques, the first one has a quiet old-fashioned look, where nobody pays attention to the spaces and structures to facilitate quick access to information.
In the next group of sites in html, we can see—perhaps unintentionally— the progress that this kind of sites has experienced after the emergence of the Web 2.0 era. And according to my thoughts, I would put them in the following order:
It is evident the 2.0 style through the good use of white space, large fonts, few colors and not much—but accurate—information. The headers maintain this feature in common: being big and important, as well as the footers. These Web sites are very accessible to the average user and have a quick download of information.â€
Red Warrior’s thoughts:
“I would like to share my opinion on these sites. Here we go!
Finally, in Newsmap and Musicovery it is clearly seen the codification through the use of color.
1. Newsmap:
The use of color is handled through a desaturated chromatic palette, where colors necessarily should facilitate the reading, since it is the objective of the site. These colors have a brightness saturation and pair luminosity, but it almost doesn’t highlight a section, giving the same importance to all. The typography used is a sans serif condensed; it’s modern with good readability!
The variable used is appropriate due to the need to include large numbers of characters within a container. In addition, the logo maintains a direct relationship with the layout of the site, structure, and colors. However, due to the amount of information, different colors, font size, menus of country selection, and other elements, your eyes require an effort to look around, read and place on the Web site.
2. Crazy Blind Date:
The site colors are pale, which broadly highlights key full color images. The logo hasn’t relevant qualities, and it is limited to use a clear and modern typography. In a nutshell, it can be recognized a clear structure, but the elements are far apart, and they break up into the page.
3. DailyLit
The iso of the logo refers directly to the industry to which it belongs. The use of pastel colors combined with serif typography and maroon color details give it a sense of some seriousness. In summary, I think that both features are very relevant to this site!
4. Musicovery
The site is very interactive and modern. The logo maintains a connection with the elements used on the Web site. Being surrounded by so many elements and having such a ‘light’ font, it should have a greater visual weight. The colors, interactivity and the use of white give a youthful style to the page. And the background images used are organic and have association with all the atmosphere of the site.
5. Qik
This site uses bright colors, and a clear and structured layout. The aesthetics of the video doesn’t have relationships with the elements, miscellaneous and images used in the rest of the site. I think it’s very entertaining, but it could have taken its graphic style in other parts of the page. The logo is very organic, because of their inclination and endings of the three characters that involve it. The fonts used are sans serif, and the use of big headlines highlights the content. Then, the reading order is well marked â€.
