A Web 2.0 Directory for Early Adopters

I just happened upon Go2Web20.net, a visual directory of over 2000 web 2.0 sites. Their About page claims it's a site for early adopters. I don't know if that's true, but I love being an early adopter -- it's so seldom that can say I am. But I like this site because it reminds me that there is SO MUCH out on the web that I never knew I was missing.

Simply scroll over a logo, and a little blurb about that site appears. No lag time, no clutter, no sales pitch. You can also search within a category via a tag cloud. My only wish would be to have a rating system in order to make some sort of judgment whether or not to click thru.

The simple design of the site makes it painfully obvious of the appeal or lack thereof of a logo design and name. I found myself scrolling over the cool looking logos or the logos that had a name with some reference to a topic I was interested in.

An unintentional benefit of go2web20.net is that a new web 2.0 company could use it as a quick and dirty brand appeal evaluation tool, by comparing their logo/name to their competitors in the same space. A survey using the resulting page would give a company some insight over their logo design/name strength, which could be useful for initial sales or adoption efforts.

For the record, I found this link via Jeremiah Owyang via a tweet on Twitter. Finding cool stuff that other people endorse is one of the reasons I love Twitter.

Twitter Google SuperTuesday Mashup Is Cool

I know it's a weak title for this post, but the Twitter / Google mashup map is cool, and I wanted to talk about it briefly as I am engaged with it. (map courtesy of TechCrunch)

As I sit on my couch watching coverage of the primaries on CNN, I'm also following the map on my laptop. People from all over the world are commenting -- from California to Maine, to Brazil and Spain.

I love the instant connection of commenting and talking to others on my twitter feed. But to actually see people's locations pop up every couple of seconds on the map makes the circle that I follow feel even more personal. It not just an avatar I can relate to, but a place, and that place no longer feels so distant or removed.

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On a more business-y note, an article on Techcrunch talks about Google collaborating with Twitter on this mashup, despite purchasing a Twitter rival, Jaiku, last fall. I like that Google values the Twitter audience, and recognizes something special about us (our numbers? our locations? our influencer status? our early adopter behaviors?).

Does this mean Twitter will become more mainstream (if it isn't already)? I love the connections I make on Twitter -- the authors of the blog feeds I follow, and the people I talk to on Gooruze are on Twitter. I value their opinions, and like that I can find them all in one place. For professional development, its a huge influencer and guide.