Is 'Best" Really the Best?

Since I am somewhat of a self-proclaimed website nerd, I anxiously await Time magazine's annual list of the 50 Best Websites. The listings, which began in 2007, have typically featured new, innovative and useful sites, many of which haven't received broad attention or publicity (for example, Twitter was on the 2007 list well before anyone even imagined what a Tweet was).

Last week Time released its third annual list of the 50 Best Websites. I rushed to my computer ready to spend hours checking out the coolest and newest internet spots - only to find the 2009 list filled with entries of well-established mainstream sites such as Flickr, Google and Skype or repeats from the 2008 list like Hulu, Mint and Kiva. Heck even Twitter and Etsy were repeats from 2007.

So what's the deal Time? Is the re-hashed listings more a sign of journalistic laziness (the list entry descriptions are "cut and paste" from the websites themselves and don't include mentions of similar sites as in previous years), or has the once limitless boundaries of creativity and venture capital taken a toll on the birth rate of new internet sites?

My gut sense is that it is a little bit of both.

Time's 2009 list was compiled and written by Adam Fisher. Fisher is the third different scribe that has been responsible for the listing in as many years. Fisher's approach seems to be more of a look at his favorite bookmarks without respect to the sites uniqueness or fresh new approach. Fisher also fails at a basic understanding of his target audience for the piece - most geeks, heck most regular internet users already know about and make regular use of sites like Google, Flickr, You Tube and Twitter, so why even include them? It is sort of like putting breathing on your daily to do list - it's a given already.

Time's other mistake, probably resulting from editorial streamlining, was to publish the 2009 list as a standalone without companion pieces from years prior such as "25 Sites We Can't Live Without" (this is where sites like Google and You Tube belong) or the "Annual Blog Listing," which covers the Web 2.0 blogosphere. Maybe Time is conceding the battle between mainstream internet sites and blogs - often murky to discern for anyone.

There were a couple of sites on Time's 2009 list worth noting, including: Visuwords, an online visual thesaurus and dictionary; TripIt, which aggregates your various travel information (flight, hotel, reservations, etc...) into one organized itinerary; and Fonolo, which is like a personal assistant for dealing with impersonal customer service calls.

The second culprit impacting Time's list might be the internet itself. The skyrocketing growth and proliferation of internet tools, especially in the last five years, seems to have resulted in a lack of creativity and an extreme case of redundancy. Are there no more new ideas just re-imagining of old concepts?

A check of simplespark.com, a site that very effectively captures the birth of new sites on a daily basis and catalogs them based on type (home, business, mobile) and tactic (green living, health, kids), indicates that each day there are hundreds of new internet tools that come on line. The site also shows the redundancy of topics and tools and the excessive niche strategy some take to survive.

Soon creating and launching an internet site or tool may supersede the failure rates of new small businesses or restaurants. Maybe then the creativity and thoughtfulness may return. Maybe then, in 2010 or 2011 the Time Best Website list will also return to showcasing the newest and the best as well.

Editor's Note - Check out my personal Top 25 Fun & Useful Websites on the Interesting Stuff page of this website.