This month ReadWriteWeb is publishing a series of top 10 lists of the best products of 2010, each based on a specific category. This post is a little different, in that it's my own personal top 10 list of my favorite products of 2010. I'm not claiming these are the best products of the year, only that they're the products I used and loved the most. Some were new in 2010 (iPad, Flipboard), some came into their own due to the way trends played out (Instapaper, Evernote), some were relative 'oldies but goodies' that I simply got a lot of joy out of this year (Facebook, Shazam).

Here are my favorites, in no particular order...

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iPad
Without a doubt my favorite new device of the year was the iPad. It changed how I consume content, particularly media content and long-form writing. This year I read a large novel on the Kindle for iPad app (Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen - an excellent book!), I subscribed to magazines using the Zinio app on my iPad (Juxtapoz, Rolling Stone and others) and I found new ways to sort through and read online articles (Flipboard, Instapaper, DropBox and more). I also enjoyed the range of apps released by media businesses - Wired, New York Times, Washington Post, TIME, and more.

Facebook
We at ReadWriteWeb have given Facebook a fair amount of criticism this year - for privacy failures, bad design, de-valuing third party content, and more. Despite all that, I've come to love using Facebook! This year I used Facebook for everything from updating my thoughts while out and about, to posting my check-ins via Foursquare, to uploading photos I'd just taken of my local beach.

The best part of Facebook this year, for me, was all of my family joining it. My Mum and Dad, along with my 2 brothers and 1 sister. All of them joined (or in one case resumed use of) Facebook this year. Much to my delight, because now I can follow my brother's power lifting videos, my other brother's iPod Touch finger paintings, my sister's new-found interest in photography, my mother's motherly 'likes' and comments, my father's witty updates. These are obviously all personal things to me, but I'm sure that you all have had similar experiences with your family or friends on Facebook this year.

Instapaper
I mentioned Instapaper above and it's certainly one of my most used apps on the iPad. More importantly, Instapaper changed the way I consume blog and other media content. Due to a number of factors, over 2010 I didn't have enough time or attention to regularly read content from Google Reader (my RSS Reader of choice). I ended up evolving to a different style of tracking and reading the news of the day. I generally now visit my favorite blogs and news aggregators, open articles of interest to me and then save them to Instapaper for later reading - usually on my iPad or iPhone. I also find stories via Twitter and Facebook, which I save the same way.

Shazam
I continue to marvel at the technology behind Shazam's iPhone app. For anyone who isn't familiar with it: if you hear a song playing on the radio or in the background at a store, open up Shazam and it will identify the title and artist. I use it often to find out what song is playing on my car radio, or at a bar or office. It's the only app I use that makes me consistently mutter to myself: how do they do that?

Evernote
I still use my red Moleskine Cahier notebooks for freeform scribbling and note-taking. However, Evernote has increasingly become my home for other kinds of notes and for personal lists.

I admire Evernote's grand goal to become your "online brain" - to store everything from your lists, to notes about foods you discover, to photos of business cards. I'm nowhere near using it to that extent, but perhaps next year I'll extend my use cases for this product. It's nice that Evernote has that flexibility, in any case.

TweetDeck
I still find Twitter to be a user experience mess at times. For example, little bugs with Twitter lists that seem to occur every time I use them. TweetDeck has some of those frustrations too - in particular the syncing between devices is troublesome and imperfect. Nevertheless, I use TweetDeck each and every day to manage and write to @RWW (the company account, since August 2010) and @ricmacnz (my personal account now - follow me there if you can put up with my art and music ramblings).

Woopra
Without a doubt the most addictive business tool I use. Tracking statistics for ReadWriteWeb is a crucial part of my work and Woopra provides a real-time view of what's happening on ReadWriteWeb at any time of the day. I check it constantly. I get warm fuzzies when I see the WikiLeaks website driving lots of traffic to RWW. I smile inwardly when I see one of my own posts doing well. I frown when a post that I wrote isn't setting the online world on fire. My curiosity is piqued when I see an old post getting action all of a sudden. So many emotions to sustain me through my working day as an online publisher!

Foursquare
At the beginning of the year, everybody was wondering which of the location-based social networks would take off: Brightkite, Gowalla, Foursquare, or a new entrant? The answer in 2010 has been Foursquare, which most of the people in my social graph use. I began to use it too, although frankly there isn't a lot of practical benefit to Foursquare where I live - not enough people in my city use it for there to be real-time social benefits, nor have there been any discount coupons for me. However, I have found it to be a fun addition to my Facebook updates. I hope it becomes more useful though, because the game mechanics aren't enough to sustain me.

Chrome
In 2009 I switched from Firefox to Chrome, as my default browser. I felt bad for Mozilla, the organization that builds Firefox and whose ideals I admire. However, Chrome was simply faster and less prone to crashes. Chrome has continued to serve me well over 2010 and the addition of the Chrome App Store makes me curious about what it will offer in 2011.

The browser market is fiercely competitive currently and I did check out a new entrant, RockMelt, recently. However I stuck with Chrome, as it hasn't let me down.

Flipboard
Like many people, I've enamored of the iPad app Flipboard and the way it's changed how web content is consumed. I must admit that I'm not a daily user though. I sometimes feel like I'm flipping through too much content I just don't want to consume. I'd like more serendipity. Perhaps I haven't populated it yet with the right Twitter lists.

Still, I hold out a lot of hope for Flipboard's magazine paradigm of consuming blog and similar content. In 2011, I plan to use Flipboard a lot more.

Honorable mentions
Products that didn't quite make my top 10, but which I use a lot and enjoy: Soup.io (my light blogging service of choice), Diamedic (an awesome iPhone app for diabetics), Lazyweb (my favorite topic tracker of the year, but this is a field which I think still needs a lot of work), DropBox (great way to sync files across devices), Mediagazer (probably my favorite news aggregator currently), Newsy (a video news app for iPad that I enjoyed throughout 2010) and Brushes (a finger painting app for iPad and iPhone).

There you have it, my favorite Web products of 2010. Let me know your own picks in the comments!

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2010 has been a watershed year for the next version of HTML, the markup language that all web pages are written in. The reason for the emerging popularity of HTML5 strikes at the heart of a company by the name of Adobe: interactivity. Adobe's near ubiquitous Flash technology has been the default way to add interactivity to web pages since the dot com era. But in 2010, that began to change. HTML5 enables much the same type of functionality as Flash (and Microsoft's Silverlight for that matter). Using HTML5, developers can add features like video, animations and drag-and-drop.

Another reason for the emergence of HTML5 is the Mobile Web. Using HTML5, mobile developers can create browser-based mobile sites that have a similar sophistication to native mobile apps. Let's look back at the past year of HTML5 innovation...

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Google: The Biggest Advocate of HTML5
Probably the biggest champion for HTML5 is Google, which has a huge financial incentive to ensure that HTML web pages continue to be the dominant way to access the Web (some argue that apps will soon rule the Web, instead of the browser). Google's search and Adsense businesses rely a huge amount on HTML sticking around - and by extension, HTML5.

At the beginning of the year, Google showed off some impressive demos utilizing HTML 5.

Also in January, Google-owned YouTube began to support HTML5. This allowed videos to be viewed without Adobe's Flash player plug-in, which YouTube claimed would make videos load faster and enable developers to build new types of features. In July, YouTube launched a beta HTML5 embeddable player.

It's worth noting that despite these moves to support HTML5, YouTube still views Flash as a superior technology for its video service.

Google also highlighted HTML5 on the mobile phone, with the January launch of an HTML5 version of its telephony service Google Voice on the iPhone. This was prompted by Apple's refusal to approve a Google Voice app on the iPhone. As we noted in January, if it's a web site then there's nothing Apple can do about it. (Apple did eventually allow a Google Voice iPhone app into the App Store, in November)

Startups Using HTML5
2010 saw a number of startups try to differentiate their products using HTML5. Among the examples we reviewed were SublimeVideo (HTML5-based video player), Bitspace (online music player and backup service for your music files), Clicker (Internet TV guide), Handroll.tv (online video) and Vimeo (online video).

Most of the HTML5-enabled startups listed above are online video services. Indeed, a report in October by MeFeedia stated that about 54% of online video is now available in HTML5.

Even museums got into the act in 2010. In November, the National Museums of Scotland became the first major museum organization in the world to fully implement HTML5.

Next Page: Steve Jobs tears Flash a new one; and when will browsers fully support HTML5?

Apple vs. Adobe
One of the biggest controversies of the year was Apple's very public refusal to allow Flash technology on the iPhone and then iPad. Apple CEO Steve Jobs penned an open letter in April, explaining that Flash is a battery drainer and is otherwise unsuitable for mobile devices. "New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too)," concluded Jobs. He followed up in June with another withering attack on Flash, at the D8 conference.

To be fair to Adobe, it has put support behind HTML5 too. During its annual developer conference, MAX, in October, Adobe announced a new product for building HTML5 content and highlighted some of the advantages of developing in HTML5. Adobe Edge, as the new tool is called, will allow developers to easily create interactive HTML5 experiences.

There has been a lot of heated discussion this year about which technology is better: Flash or HTML5. The consensus among most people (other than Steve Jobs) is that HTML5 is the future, but Flash is still the default for interactivity in the browser.

Full Browser Support Not There Yet
With a new version of HTML on the way, browsers of course will need to support it. However that process has been surprisingly slow. The Web's governing body, W3C, has even admitted that HTML5 is not ready to replace Flash just yet.

According to Phillippe Le Hegaret, an official with W3C responsible for SVG and HTML specifications, the issue is getting HTML5 to operate the same in different browsers and using different video devices. He noted that HTML5 currently lacks a video codec and digital rights management capabilities. However, he expects the HTML5 specification to be "feature-complete by mid-2011."

In a browser test conducted by the W3C recently, Microsoft's IE9 browser performed very well - although there was some disagreement about the results.

Chrome Experiment Showcases HTML5
Perhaps the most impressive HTML5 demo we saw during 2010 was Google's partnership with indie music band Arcade Fire, in late August. Showing off HTML5 support in its browser Chrome, Google's "Chrome Experiment" showcased a number of HTML5 features - such as the ability to choreograph windows and synchronize music and video between them, use HTML5 for 3D rendering, rotating and zooming of Google Maps satellite imagery, and inserting animated sprites directly over satellite imagery.

In summary, it's been a big year for HTML5. In 2011, this technology will probably go mainstream as full browser support becomes available in about the middle of the year. Let us know in the comments your thoughts on HTML5 and its future!

Image credit: Justin Watt (via A List Apart)

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