Great Eight of ‘08 - Online Gems

Posted on | March 1, 2009 |

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Video Site: Hulu (www.hulu.com)
Hulu, our best-of-the-betas pick last year, is all grown up and has clearly become one of the top online video sites on the web. Between Tina Fey’s Saturday Night Live Palin bits during the 2008 presidential campaign and the Alec Baldwin Super Bowl ad, we see no signs of slowing for this soon-to-be monster.

Hulu.com and Saturday Night Live both got a jolt from Tina Fey in 2008

Most Absurd: Woot (www.woot.com)

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It’s half cheap consumer electronics store, half Star Wars-obsessed, techie nerd packing his secondhand crap into miscellaneous boxes… and then selling them to willing fools.

Youth Evangelist: Ypulse (www.ypulse.com)

Not many people have the ability or energy to dive into the depths of the complicated and often moody minds of teenagers. Not only does Ypulse do this well, it actually gives us hope that not all kids are overindulged smart-asses.

Techno-Geek Gone Do-Gooder: DIYCity (www.diycity.org)

Reinventing the world one widget at a time, DIYCity challenges your inner competitive geek to create social apps that help make life a little easier — from city projects to traffic tweets.

Eco Conscious: Breathing Earth (www.breathingearth.net)
Imagine having a real-time aerial view of the earth’s inherent demise, showcasing death, birth and carbon-induced destruction. It certainly adds a chilling perspective to our mass consumption.

Breathingearth.net — tracking global birth rates, real time

Most Musically Inclined: Hype Machine (www.hypem.com)

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Picture a site that aggregates every new track, mashup, band news feature, artist biography and music blog in the world. As hard as it is to fathom that something so glorious exists, believe it!

Innovative Trends: PSFK (www.psfk.com)

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PSFK will spark hours of fascinating procrastination. Touch screen turntables, futuristic recycling, web browsing through time and a baby Jesus protected by the powers of GPS are just a few of the things you’ll find. If you need some new ammunition to take out your friends in a round of one-upmanship, this is the go-to spot.

Japanese Culture: NY-Tokyo (www.newyork-tokyo.com)
If New York and Tokyo had a love child, it would be a slightly chaotic, pop-subculture hipster called ny-tokyo.com who knows everything and anything on the brink of cool in Japan.