Top 5 Lesser-Known Web 2.0 Sites

After finishing Malcolm Gladwell's perspective-bending book The Tipping Point (which I will post more on later) last weekend, I have been wondering if I am somewhat of what Gladwell calls a "Maven" - someone who likes to gather information in a particular field and pass it on to others.

In the spirit of this possible newfound character trait, I decided to post a list of lesser-known Web 2.0 sites that I find particularly awesome. I chose to avoid Google-owned sites and large social networks (Facebook, Myspace) because I figure everyone's heard of those.

If you're not familiar with Web 2.0, don't worry, nobody really knows what it means. I'm using it here to describe websites that rather than just providing you with information, actually help you accomplish a task, using the internet as their platform. These sites are sort of like programs (e.g. Word or Photoshop) only instead of running on your computer, they're on the internet.

These sites feature all of the aspects I love in a Web 2.0 site - helpfulness, simplicity, ease-of-use, no cost, and very few ads.

(in order of most to least awesome)

1. Mint.com

Mint finally helped me get my family's finances organized. I had tried Microsoft Money. I had tried Quicken. Both were hard to use, had too many features I didn't need, and required me to manually insert and laboriously finagle my financial data - or pay them to do it.

Then along comes Mint and makes everything simple, easy, and free. I login, input the names of my financial services of choice, and voilà - monthly spending reports that are clean and intuitive. It's super easy to create a budget and you can even create email alerts for when you go over budget, have low account balances, or make unexpected purchases. Best of all, there's no more finagling my data - I'd say Mint correctly guesses which category my purchases should go in 95% of the time.

It's so easy to use and so well designed it makes doing your finances that much closer to fun.

2. Pandora.com

Ok so this might not be so lesser-known, but I've been using it since it began so I'm going to include it. Pandora is basically an internet radio station - except the music on the station is determined by finding songs which sound similar to songs or artists you already enjoy. Pandora has hired a team of musicians whose job it is to listen to songs and categorize them using over 400 different attributes (or "genes") - from "Contrapuntal Melodic Presentation" to "Sampledelia Compositional Qualities." They call this database of dissected songs and the algorithm used to link them to each other the "Music Genome Project."

So, when you go to Pandora.com, you enter an artist or a song you like, and Pandora serves up a playlist of songs which are remarkably similar it. It's a great way to listen to music, and an even better way to find new music you like.

3. INGdirect.com

Ok so! Maybe this isn't primarily a Web 2.0 site. It's primarily a bank. But the unusual thing about this bank it doesn't have a building. It's entirely online - which I think definitely puts ING in the "website as an application" category.

ING is FDIC insured, and it's weathering the financial crisis pretty well. Their savings account has no fees, no minimum balance, and right now my interest rate (APY) is 2.75%. It has been as high as 4.5%. Compare that to my previous BB&T savings account, which had an interest rate of 0.25%. It's a no brainer.

The only negative about ING is it does take a few business days to get money into and out of the account (which you do by linking it to your checking account and transferring money back and forth). And the fact that you don't have a brick-and-mortar building to go to, if you're into that sortof thing.

(I should mention the generous Ed Bynum informed me of another online bank, similar to ING, which sometimes has a higher rate of return - emigrantdirect.com. But I haven't used it so I can't really recommend it. )

4. Snipshot.com

If you're ever in a pinch and you need a photo resized or cropped and you don't happen to have photo-editing software installed on your computer (or you'd just rather not wait for Photoshop to load), why not edit it online? With Snipshot you can upload your photo, crop/resize/rotate/enhance it, and save it as a JPG, GIF, PNG, TIF - even a PDF!

UPDATE: The principled Rob Johnson informed me of Picnik, an online photo editor that kicks the crap out of Snipshot. Unfortunately it's a little slower and there's no upload by URL feature, but you can upload photos from your social networks or photo-sharing sites of choice, edit them, and save them right back - which is awesome. Picnik's tools are miles above Snipshot's too. I'm a convert.

5. Umbrellatoday.com

The bare essentials weather report. Enter your zip code, and umbrellatoday tells you if you will need an umbrella today or not. Save the URL if you want to view that zip code again later. Best of all, umbrellatoday will text-message you on days you'll need an umbrella if you'd like. Simple, easy, awesome.