The Web 2.0 Wars season has come to an end. The list of winners and playoff brackets were posted the other day.
Now it’s time for the first round in the quarter-finals.
Here’s how the playoffs will work. After taking a look at my prior commentary about each application, I’ll revisit the page and see what, if anything, is new. I’ll add an update for each contestant and pick the winner.
Here are the contestants for the first quarter-final round:
Pageflakes
YouTube
Poddater
TailRank (replaced Tagworld)
FireAnt
Pageflakes is a content aggregator and custom portal. It is easy to set up and has some pre-configured content to help you get started. You can import your RSS feeds or add content manually. I still prefer My Yahoo, but that may be because I am so familiar with it. Pageflakes is a well designed and easy to use application.
YouTube is a video hosting, sharing and search service. It’s free and seems fast and reliable. Since it won Round 2 back in early February, it has really taken off. Even people who know little about tech and the internet are becoming aware of YouTube. This week I noticed a secretary in my office watching this somewhat pitiful and somewhat hilarious ego-fest (Warning: strong language; not suitable for kids). Youtube is a force to be reckoned with.
Poddater is a personals meets podcasting site. You make a video profile and upload it to share with others. I’m about a thousand years too old to be interested in this, but it’s a unique idea and the web site looks very well designed. This is one service that I can’t sign up and try for obviously, but the idea is a good one.
TailRank is a memetracker, and a mighty fine one at that. Since winning Round 4, Kevin and crew have added one excellent feature after another to TailRank. Listening to users is smart on so many levels, and Kevin listens to his users. A well designed and useful application with huge potential.
FireAnt is a video blog directory and search engine. The downloadable client allows you to watch video blogs in many different formats. You can search for content and you can subscribe to RSS video feeds and have content delivered to you automatically. It’s a neat service, but I still prefer YouTube for my video needs.
And the Winner of the first quarter-final round is:
While all of these applications are excellent and have great potential, YouTube and TailRank are juggernauts of the new internet. Either one would be a great choice to move to the Final Four, but YouTube’s penetration into the non-tech population gives it a slight edge.
YouTube moves to the Final Four.
Newsome.Org 