Over December we have published our best Web products of 2009 over ten posts. This week we've opened up our selections for you to vote on . The poll is embedded below and we invite you to select your favorite web products of 2009. You can vote for up to 10 products. If you don't see one of your favorites in the list, note it in the comments and we'll count that as a vote too. We will announce the final top 10, along with the full results, this Friday . After one day of voting, here is the top 10: Sponsor 1 Twitter 2 Google Maps 3 Google Chrome 4 Facebook 5 Hulu 6 Adobe AIR 7 WordPress 8 TweetDeck 9 iPhone platform 10 Evernote Note: the poll is randomly ordered, but you can also view an alphabetical list below. What are your best products of 2009? (multiple choice) ( polling ) Top 100 Web Products of 2009, Alphabetical Aardvark ActivityStreams Adobe AIR Amazon EC2 Android platform Appsfire Apture Arduino Basecamp BBC's Semantic Music Project Bing Blip.fm BNO (Breaking News Online) box.net Boxee Brightkite ChartBeat Cisco Collaboration Citysense Clicker Cliqset Collecta Data.gov DBpedia Echo (JS-Kit) Evernote Evri Facebook Facebook iPhone app Fedex SenseAware Feedly Fever Foursquare Freebase FreshBooks Glue Google App Engine Google Apps Google Chrome Google Maps Google Search Options and Rich Snippets Google Voice Hootsuite HP CeNSE Hulu IBM's sensor solutions ioBridge iPhone platform Jimdo Jive Software SBS 4.0 Jolicloud Layar Microsoft Windows Azure MindTouch Mint Mir:ror MOG Moshi Monsters Mozilla Raindrop New York Times APIs OneForty Open Calais OrSiSo Outside.in Pachube Posterous Postrank present.ly PubSubHubbub Rackspace Cloud Drive Regator Ribbit RSSCloud Salesforce.com Seesmic Shazam SocialCast Socialtext Spotify StockTwits Superfeedr Tornado (FriendFeed framework) Tumblr TweetDeck Tweetie Tweetmeme Twidroid Twingly Twitter Vuze Wetoku WideNoise Wikitude Wolfram Alpha Woopra WordPress Yahoo Query Language (YQL) Yelp Zemanta Zoho CRM Discuss

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Interim Results: Vote Now For Your Favorite Web Products of 2009

Google Apps is adding Google Groups to its enterprise suite of applications, another example of Google's commitment to developing an online application environment that is compelling enough for users to move off the Windows platform. Google Groups has to this point been a consumer service. As part of Google Apps, it now integrates with Google Docs, Google Calendar, GMail, Google Sites and Google Video. Sponsor Adding Google Groups is another shot across Microsoft's bow. Striking is the speed in which companies like Google can innovate with web-based applications, compared to Microsoft's long development cycles. Designing for the browser is so much more efficient that you have to wonder how much of a lead Microsoft can hold in face of the fast development cycles from Google and others in the enterprise collaboration space. In 2007, Google Apps had three products: Gmail, Google Docs and Google Calendar. Today, Google Apps includes 24 products. The cost for Google Apps is $50 per user/per year. In the current Microsoft desktop model, the costs to develop products make it seemingly impossible to keep licensing costs as low as Google Apps. The customer investment is magnified by the technology investments that IT departments need t make in order to keep desktop applications running inside the enterprise. This not to say that Google is lacking any weaknesses of its own. The addition of Google Groups adds another level of functionality to its enterprise suite. Still, the features are fairly simple, compared to the Windows platform. Features Google is adding groups to address the challenges for both the IT administrator and the user. In Google's view, managing groups is a significant administrative burden for IT. The user, in turn is dependent on IT to create the groups. Google's answer is to create a group environment that can be controlled by the user or the IT department. The IT department can control all groups that are created or it can give complete control to the user. This will all sound familiar if you have ever set up your own Google Group. The process is pretty straight forward. The time it takes to set up a group is minimal. You give the group a name and create a group email and web address. You then add a short description and set controls for who has access. Members are added by sending an email with an invitation. Google Groups for the enterprise is designed for users to collaborate on projects. For example, Google Docs and shared folders may be added to a group as can mock ups from Google Sites. Calendar items can be added or a testimonial using Google Video. Dependence on email is its weakness. All changes or additions are sent through email, just as in the consumer version of Google Groups. The saving grace is Google search, which makes it easier to find information in the email. Activity streams are all the rage and seem like they would potentially fit if the groups were designed differently. But you can see why email is the default. Google Groups on the consumer side is designed for email as a distribution mechanism so it makes sense it would be the same for the enterprise. In Conclusion Adding Google Groups is not a dramatic improvement to Google Apps. But it will be compelling to watch how the collaboration market unfolds in 2010 in the face of rapid feature enhancements from Google and a host of competitors competing for a piece of the enterprise market. Discuss

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Google Groups the Latest to Join Google Apps in the Battle for the Enterprise

2009 may be remembered as the year that enterprises truly understand the importance of social software. This manifested with the rise of enterprise collaboration services, cloud computing technologies and the growing importance of mobile technologies for the enterprise. Web-based services are moving fast into the enterprise, raising questions about document-based environments in a world increasingly influenced by real-time information. We saw this time and again as the year rolled on. It played an important factor in how we developed our top ten list. Sponsor ReadWriteWeb's Best Products of 2009: Our list includes three companies that made the list last year. We expect that this list may have some surprises. We welcome your feedback on the products that made the top 10 and your thoughts on ones that didn't make it. Microsoft Windows Azure and Sharepoint Microsoft has made huge strides with Sharepoint 2010. It is expected to continue its march into the enterprise this coming year. It may not be a best of breed application by any means, but its API is attracting a healthy number of third-party vendors. These companies are developing services to bring a level of transparency to enterprise data, which has historically been trapped in data silos. But Windows Azure is Microsoft's most exciting development. Ray Ozzie unveiled the cloud-based platform at the Professional Developers Conference last month and it is living up to its promise. It supports Ruby on Rails and MySQL, another sign that open-source is welcome on the Azure platform. Dallas, its mashup service, embraces the computational power of cloud computing, giving developers the ability to create their own applications that they may sell via the Azure platform. All in all, the services Microsoft is providing makes it a natural fit for the Top 10 list. Jive Software SBS 4.0 This Portland-based company continues to make strides into the enterprise. Earlier this Fall, the company unveiled Jive SBS 4.0 , its most significant update to date. SBS 4.0 is Jive's latest version of its enterprise collaboration technology. Jive may be the most threatening competitor to Microsoft Sharepoint. Its platform integrates with Microsoft Office, the iPhone and provides a social layer that users find compelling. Jive recently raised $12 million in venture funding from Sequoia Capital. Salesforce.com Salesforce.com took a deep dive into the social space this year, culminating with Salesforce Chatter , a real-time service that acts as an internal social network for its customers. It was the culmination of a big year for the cloud-based service. Force.com, its application platform, saw significant growth. To date, developers have launched 135,000 applications on the platform. Further, a growing number of third-party services are integrating with the platform, showing again how important Salesforce.com has become in the Enterprise 2.0 space. SocialCast Social Business Intelligence One of our favorite companies in the web space, SocialCast is one of those services that just seems to understand the market and execute accordingly. What sets it apart is the user interface and SocialCast Social Business Intelligence , its sophisticated analytics environment, which will be a critical aspect to any service providing a real-time feed in an enterprise environment. Google Apps Google is making a clear move into the enterprise in a number of ways. Most recently, it enhanced its integration with the Blackberry. Google Sites recently had a major upgrade. Overall, Google is investing heavily in features to give enterprise customers more incentives to switch from Microsoft Office. We'll see how 2010 turns out for Google, but the path looks pretty clear for Google Apps to make further gains in the enterprise. Next page: Top Enterprise Products of 2009, 6-10 MindTouch MindTouch continues to find traction with its open-source services. Its most recent offering, MindTouch Cloud , is an open-source alternative to Sharepoint. Its ability to stitch together different data elements gives MindTouch an advantage in the enterprise, as customers seek additional ways to create dashboards that provide views into their internal systems and external environments. Cisco Collaboration This choice may be a bit of a surprise, but we feel that Cisco's investments in VOIP and collaboration services position it as a major player in the market. The company is acquiring Tandberg, it launched a social network service for internal use in the enterprise, and its VOIP service is now integrated with Salesforce.com. We see 2010 as the year that Cisco must tie it all together. It needs a glue to connect all of the services that it offers. Unlike Microsoft or IBM, Cisco lacks an underlying data structure. Still, the company's deep commitment to collaboration technologies in 2009 shows how it is transitioning to a new market that is built in many ways upon a social fabric. Socialtext The Socialtext story dates back to the days before Web 2.0. It began as a wiki provider and has since transformed itself into a collaboration service with real-time, microblogging integrations. In the past year, the company has continued to innovate - most recently with SocalCalc , the spreadsheet service that allows for multiple users to collaborate simultaneously across multiple documents. The challenge for Socialtext is to move past its perception as a wiki provider. The market is far larger for a collaboration platform and Socialext knows it. It will face steep competition in the enterprise against entrenched players like Microsoft and newcomers like Jive Software. present.ly Another company that may be flying under the radar to most, but is taking a smart approach with enterprise customers. Present.ly is an enterprise collaboration service that provides a real-time activity stream. It is profitable and growing, by taking the steps required to gain the trust of enterprises. Its security is tight and it offers the choice of an on-premise solution. present.ly is one of those elegant services that we admire for its smart fit with services like Twitter; and its compatibility with an array of mobile and web-based services. Apple iPhone Perhaps one of the mist revolutionary consumer products of our time, the iPhone is now also having a dramatic impact on the enterprise. Waves of business users have adopted the iPhone, creating demand for a new generation of enterprise applications. It's the Web that matters. Apple understands that dynamic far more than RIM and its Blackberry, which has a tough fight on its hands in 2010. There is no slowing down the iPhone - it's quickly becoming the app of choice for the enterprise. In Conclusion In 2009 we saw the rise of collaboration services, the maturing of cloud computing and advances in SaaS platforms. The rise of mobile technologies will continue in 2010. And social technologies in the enterprise? Well, they're here to stay. ReadWriteWeb's Best Products of 2009: Discuss

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Top 10 Enterprise Products of 2009

Our startup-minded readers may remember Mike Trotzke, our good friend who, with a little help from his good friends Marc Guyer and Brad Wisler, founded a startup incubator called SproutBox earlier this year. One of the latest sprouts to emerge from the box is Squad , Trotzke's gift to developers everywhere - and we mean everywhere! This web-based environment allows distributed teams to collaborate in real time, opening, editing and sharing code from anywhere with an Internet connection. Sponsor It's also beautifully portable - meaning you can work on projects from any location, whether it's your home computer, your laptop, your mom's vaccum tube-era model - any device with a browser can be your portal. And because it's collaborative, it's great for conducting code reviews or paired programming. And it's a perfect platform for noobs and the poor suckers who have to train them. It's even got a built in chat module so you can discuss changes as they're made. Parts of this app dimly reminded us of Lowdown , a plain-text collaboration tool for developers to communicate to designers and managers, and even more so of How's My Code , a resource for distributed teams to conduct code reviews and keep all the coders for a project on the same page. But those apps were relatively lightweight contraptions slapped together for the Rails Rumble a couple months ago. Trotzke offers a product of a different caliber altogether. He wrote to us, "It has a unique approach to realtime interaction that even non-developer types would find interest in. "Users follow each others actions (tab switching, scrolling, etc.) and then see each character they type. You kind of need to try it out to get the feel, but it's pretty sexy for instructional or code review use cases." Sounds sexy indeed! Like a developers-only, less crowded, actually useful version of Google Wave. Check out the screenshots: Pricing is competitive and ranges from free to $40 per month for teams of up to 5 users, with additional user support available for $7 per user per month. And the first month is free for everyone on a trial basis. Squad supports a variety of languages, including HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, Python, SPARQL, Lua and XML. Squad works great as an HTML editor, a PHP editor or a plain text editor. The startup also plans to add a Ruby syntax mode, enhanced search and replace functions, an offline sharing mode, a show/hide feature on the collaboration panel and project handling functions. It looks like a great, exciting product, and we look forward to reading users' reviews and seeing what else Trotzke and the Squad team come up with. Discuss

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Like Google Wave for Developers: Real-Time, Collaborative Code Editing

Collaboration may be the hottest trend to hit the enterprise this year. But what makes it so hot? Why now? According to "Benchmarking Your Collaboration Strategy," a new report from Forrester Research , two key trends make collaboration important to the enterprise right now: The amount of content that people produce is morphing, especially as the advent of social computing becomes more commonplace. Sponsor Second, inefficiencies are swamping the enterprise with the need to create collaborative strategies that provide a more structured approach to how information is managed. Four Key Factors Innovation: The poor economy is playing an important factor in how companies view the ways they develop products. Management is looking for more efficient and creative ways to innovate. And they are looking to Web 2.0 technologies for answers. According to Forrester, discussion forums and idea management tools are the top two Web 2.0 technologies being considered and piloted by IT decision-makers this year. Efficiency: Information workers are high-paid, valuable members of the enterprise. But they have a hard time finding information to get their job done, with 83% saying they waste time searching for information vital to their work projects. There is growing importance for tools that provide the ability to better find information and connect more easily with co-workers who can provide expertise to solve problems and drive efficiencies. Email Woes: A huge need is emerging for better ways to reuse information that normally would be lost in email communication. Email is used to share information but it only goes so far as the people in the email chain. Once in the chain, it's locked away. Changing email behavior is no easy task but collaboration technologies hold promise for more information to be shared throughout the enterprise. Governance: Managing business information is becoming a legal necessity. Communication is becoming so widespread that it is becoming difficult to track. According to Forrester, only 20% of businesses report that they're very confident that if challenged, they could demonstrate that their digital information is accurate, trustworthy and accessible. Benchmarking For Success Forrester's report is designed to provide a framework for building a collaborative practice in the enterprise. Senior level executives came to understand in 2009 the need for better collaboration. In 2010, we expect structured formats like what Forrester proposes will be increasingly important for successful implementation of collabortion technologies in the enterprise. Discuss

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Collaboration Is Hot: Why Now?

Here is this week's ReadWriteWeb events guide. As always, you can download the entire event calendar in iCal format or import it into your Google Calendar. You can also import individual events using the link beside each entry. This events guide is a weekly feature here on ReadWriteWeb. We publish it every weekend, as good a time as any to review your conference plans. Know of an event taking place that should appear here? Let us know in the comments below or contact us . Sponsor 19 November 2009: Mountain View, California Under the Radar Featuring the most cutting-edge mobile startups from around the globe, Under the Radar will get you dialed in to what the 2010 mobile innovation marketplace will look like. It's a must-attend event for dealmakers from global carriers, brands, media companies, and handset manufacturers responsible for helping their companies leverage new mobile technology and innovation in the fast-evolving digital landscape. Save $200: book by 2 October 2009, and get the early-bird rate. 30 November 2009 New Way to Work Do you have a great story about your work environment? Job marketplace Elance and Vator.tv have partnered to host the "New Way to Work" competition, with a grand prize of $10,000 in cash or health insurance for the most compelling story. You can tell your story on Vator.tv, the premier platform for entrepreneurs to broadcast their voice, by uploading a video, posting an update, linking to a blog entry, or sharing a photo. Hurry, the competition ends on 30 November 2009. 1 – 3 December 2009: London, England Online Information & IMS 2009 Online Information and IMS together create the largest event dedicated to the information industry. Consisting of an exhibition delivering over 9,000 visitors from 70 countries, a conference and a show-floor seminar program, the event provides an annual meeting place for the global information industry. Online Information is once again set to play host to thousands of information professionals, information end-users and publishers from around the globe, meeting suppliers of online content, e-publishing, and library management solutions. IMS provides a forum for IT, business, and information management professionals to find unlimited, relevant advice, educational content and compare solutions under one roof. Attend IMS and meet suppliers of content management, search solutions, and Web 2.0 technologies. 1 – 3 December 2009: Boston, Massachusetts Gilbane Conference Boston Join us at the sixth annual "Gilbane Conference Boston: Content, Collaboration and Customers." Your content is your business, and you need to make your Web content part of an integrated platform for customers. You need to know solutions and technologies that are ready to be implemented today. Gilbane Conference Boston is built around the four major areas of how enterprises use Web and content technologies: Web business and engagement; Managing collaboration and social media: internal and external; Enterprise content: searching, integrating and publishing; Content infrastructure. Visit www.gilbaneboston.com for conference details. ReadWriteWeb readers, use the discount code "GILBANE" to save an additional $200. Register today! 1 – 3 December 2009: San Francisco Supernova The Supernova Conference is the thought-leadership forum for the network age. It brings together over 500 business, government and technology influencers to understand how decentralization and pervasive connectivity are changing our world. It's the only conference to focus on how networks have become the main instruments of change from both business and social perspectives. An ever-evolving network itself, the conference has become the place for highly interactive and spirited debates, making significant business connections and revelations on new innovation. ReadWriteWeb readers get a discount of $700 off the regular price when registering by 16 October 2009. Use code "RRW09". After October 16th, the discount changes to $200 off the regular price. Register here . 7 December 2009: San Francisco SF MusicTech Summit The SF MusicTech Summit brings together 600+ visionaries in the music/technology space, along with the best and brightest developers, entrepreneurs, investors, service providers, journalists, musicians and organizations who work with them at the convergence of culture and commerce. We meet to discuss the evolving music/business/technology eco-system in a proactive environment, highly conducive to deal making. Register with a great ReadWriteWeb 15% discount . 7 – 11 December 2009: Chicago, Illinois Search Engine Strategies 2009 From social media to local search to video SEO, Search Engine Strategies Chicago puts you in front of the experts who will help you sort which technologies and channel will take you to the next level and which are just hype. Search Engine Strategies is the pioneer of educational conference series in search engine marketing. It's the venue where the industry visionaries and thought leaders gather each year to discuss the newest trends, share insights and present the strategic action plans you need to grow your business. Sessions include: SEO Through Blogs and Feeds Duplicate Content and Multiple Site Issues What's the Link Between Search and Social? Online PR: Where to Next? Search Analytics See more at www.SearchEngineStrategies.com/chicago . ReadWriteWeb readers receive a 15% discount when registering here using RWW15 code. 11 December 2009: Mountain View, California Add-on-Con Add-on-Con is a single-day conference focused on the future of the browser and its emergence as a platform. Developer sessions will cover best practices, cross-browser development and mash-ups. Marketing sessions will focus on monetization opportunities, distribution strategies and stats. Join 200+ individuals involved in add-on development to help define an emerging new market in the Web's eco-system. ReadWriteWeb readers save $50 by using the discount code "addoncon09RRW." 11 January 2010: Nashville, Tennessee Social Fresh Nashville This is the social media conference that comes to you. Social Fresh is a one-day, case-study-rich conference targeted for marketers. Social Fresh Nashville will have 30+ speakers, including Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer, Gavin Baker of Ruby Tuesday and John Andrews of Collective Bias (formerly of Walmart). ReadWriteWeb readers get a 15% discount with the code "RWW15". 27 – 28 January 2010: Amsterdam, The Netherlands Enterprise Social 2.0: Rip or ROI? This senior executive event will bring together decision makers from the Top Fortune companies to discuss innovative strategies on how to maximise business performance through social media engagement. The event will include keynote speeches, best-practice presentations as well as interactive discussion sessions. The summit will provide excellent opportunities for you to hear international experts discuss best practices on how to drive business performance using Web 2.0 and social media. Key issues to be discussed include: How to integrate social media programs successfully into business strategies? Building business momentum, visibility and market growth through social media Measuring success and influence using metrics and analytics: what are the tools and techniques Integrating viral marketing and social media into traditional marketing mix Developing and activating audiences using social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs 8 February 2010: Tampa, Florida Social Fresh Tampa This is the social media conference that comes to you. Social Fresh is a one-day, case-study-rich conference targeted for marketers. Social Fresh Tampa will have 30+ speakers, including Chris Barger of GM, Maggie Fox of Social Media Group and John Andrews of Collective Bias (formerly of Walmart). ReadWriteWeb readers get a 15% discount with the code "RWW15". 18 February 2010: Silicon Valley, California Future of Funding Active limited partners, top rated venture capitalists, and successful entrepreneurs are invited to Silicon Valley on February 18, 2010 to discuss the Future of Funding. The venture capital bubble has burst, and change is coming. Now is the time to have a constructive dialog about the future with all of the stakeholders at the table. Don't miss the opportunity to partake in this exclusive event hosted by TheFunded . Please visit www.futureoffunding.com to see speaker and event details. ReadWriteWeb readers use the code "RWW" and get 10% off. 15 – 16 March 2010: London, England 2nd Annual Social Networking World Forum — London The 2nd Annual Social Networking World Forum takes place at the Olympia Conference Centre in London. The two-day event features four dedicated conference streams: Social Networking World Forum Enterprise social media Social TV World Forum Mobile Social Networking Forum The event features key speakers from global brands, organizations, social networking publishers and developers, pioneering social media leaders, top agencies, content producers, and more. Full workshop program within exhibition area Evening networking reception Pre-show online meeting planner for delegates Free pass for exhibition only Download this entire events calendar in iCal format. Discuss

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ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 21 November 2009

Rackspace is launching a new service called " Cloud Drive ," that allows businesses to store, share and back up files in the Rackspace cloud. Rackspace is one of the world's largest hosting companies but with more services being offered in the cloud, it is starting to look like it is also establishing a presence as a collaboration services provider. Sponsor Pat Mathews, president of email and apps for Rackspace said this is exactly what is happening. "We are definitely moving down the collaboration path with Cloud Drive," Mathews sad. In reality, Rackspace is following a natural progression. With the ability to move IT to the cloud, Rackspace will have to deepen its collaboration service. For instance, search is not a part of the current offering. But it is part of the roadmap and will become a critical service for customers as they move their files to the cloud. It's a focal reason why collaboration providers like Box.net put a heavy premium on search. Customers need the capability. Without it, the information can end up in folders without ever being touched again. Some of the features that are part of Cloud Drive include: Synchronized folders across one or more computers. Syncronized version control to make sure colleagues are working with the most recent files. Automatic data backups in the event of a hardware failure. Complementing Cloud Drive is Rackspace Server Backup, which backs up applications and protects file server data. Its primary function is to back up Windows or Linux data. Bot Cloud Drive and Rackspace Server Backup are powered by Jungle Disk , which Rackspace acquired last year. Rackspace Cloud Drive costs $4 per user, per month. Rackspace Server Backup costs $5 per server, per month. Discuss

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Rackspace Adds More Cloud-Based Services, Moves Down the Collaboration Path