5 web services that left a mark on 2008

Here is a list of 5 services I either discovered or start using this year and that I wish I had invented or been a part of their founding team:

1. The Hype Machine: Music blog are the best venue to discover new music. Hypem aggregates those blogs, plays you the music they suggest and plays around with the gathered data in useful ways. Their biz model is pretty straight forward: they charge a referral fee for suggesting you new music (the radio industry should take note). Why I like it: simple, game changing and clear monetization strategy. My suggestions for 2009: FB app/ FB connect.
2. Rescue Time: Tracks you activity at the desktop and on the web and seemingly categorizes the sites and applications to brake down activities into core tasks (e.g.; communications, social networks, news, design, programming, etc).  Is very difficult to assess the actual productivity of multitasking: work is spread and goals are approached in small increments of effort and attention. Is crucial to assess how much time is being wasted. Rescue Time also provides several ways to organize and play around with the data to optimize your use of time. ). Why I like it: simple and useful tool to combat Information Overload  which is  the main backslash of the current state of technology and the “now” culture . My suggestions for 2009: Share data on top of social graph (compare computer/desktop usage with other users like me –my age, my profession, etc-) and integrate with mobile (we spent significant amount of time talking, texting and browsing on the mobile).
3. Dropbox: Share desktop files. Why I like it: It works flawlessly and  it takes away two or three clicks from sharing files via email or IM. Also, is idiot proof. Finally, it also serves as a nice file backup solution. My suggestions for 2009: Log of document modifications.
4. Evernote: Take notes, snippets and even pictures of thing you write or see and store them and organize them on Evernote. “Remember everything” is their motto. An interesting article (or as section of it) online, something you read on a book or a note taken at the back of a napkin can all be centralized and organized at evernote. Their image to text conversion technology is beyond impressive. It is in effect an alternative memory. Why I like it: Kick ass image to text technology, fluid multi platform integration (including mobile) and perhaps the best solution out there to expand the otherwise information overloaded clutter memory. My suggestions for 2009: Generate auto tags from the text, semantically organize those tags and build a new Wikipedia from meaningful sections of content and quotes (on the other hand…I might just do that myself )
5. Covestor: Share your stock market trades. As simple as that but it makes all the sense in the world.  I just  started using it but I  have been looking at the site for a long long time. Other services like Mint.com and other personal finance solutions where you get not only to save your data but also compare it are of great value because they can help you make more money and spend less. They teach you something.   Why I like it: Gives you access to smarter investors and hence it helps you make money. My suggestions for 2009: Not a long time  user so can really comment on it. Perhaps there is a place here to make a note for myself and remind me to start using it more in 2009.

There are two common threads on these companies: info aggregation and re distribution and information overload solutions. Also, they all have clean and easy to use UI.