Blog Post

Open Thread: Name That One Web Startup You Can't Live Without

Stay on Top of Enterprise Technology Trends

Get updates impacting your industry from our GigaOm Research Community
Join the Community!

logosmashupEarlier today, I asked folks who follow me on Twitter: “Which is that one web startup you can’t live without. Just one. Google products not allowed. no Yahoo. STARTUP Offering(s) only. And no Twitter!” In the early days of what is Web 2.0 we saw the emergence of products and services such as Moveable Type, Flickr and Del.icio.us. Amongst early adopters, these apps were pretty popular. Flickr and Del.icio.us were acquired by Yahoo. Moveable Type is part of SixApart, a thriving software startup.

I just wanted to see if a new generation of must-have services had emerged. In response to my question, I ended up getting a pretty diverse set of answers from Twitter-land. Three startups that got a lot of mentions were: Evernote, FriendFeed and Mint.com. Sure there were mentions of Digg and Facebook, but those three got most mentions. Remember The Milk, Xobni and Dropbox were other names that were mentioned. With the exception of Mint, I pretty much use (or have used) products made by these startups on a daily basis. I can see why people can’t live without them. My pick is Remember The Milk. What’s yours?

PS: You can follow me on Twitter as I go through my day. We also have Twitter feeds for NewTeeVee, The Apple Blog, Earth2Tech, and WebWorkerDaily, along with Twitter feeds from Kevin and James of jkOnTheRun.

PS #2: I blame all this talk about Twitter today on Pat Phelan who is looking for some Twitter intervention.

39 Responses to “Open Thread: Name That One Web Startup You Can't Live Without”

  5. AbeDogg

    Since i use a majority of the services most people has put as their number one i can firmly say that Swedish music service Spotify easily whoops them all. Spotify is-music done right in every way imaginable and it is an itunes killer without any doubt. I know that it is not possible to get it for the US but get in line for one if you are from france, uk, germany, spain and the nordics of course.

    January 25, 2009 at 3:49 pm
  6. thegeniusfiles

    Evernote. This is one company which continues to add features, and listens to customer feedback. It is indispensible for students. With its cross-platform ability to synchronize changes to files, it is becoming a true Web OS. Evernote is one of the few services I am willing to pay for Premium service.

    January 25, 2009 at 10:13 am
  22. Unimpressed

    I hope I’m not the only person who is skeptical of Mint. Even if it’s the best app on the web, there is no freakin’ way I would upload my financial information to a free website so I can see more ads targeted to my income & spending level. I’ll spend the $50 and use Quicken or MS money or something that allows me to maintain the illusion of privacy.

    January 23, 2009 at 9:54 pm
  23. Samuel Sidler

    I’d have to say that Mint is high on my list. I use it almost daily and check the iPhone app quite a bit. The features I want are in the pipeline. Most companies that say that I don’t believe, but Mint seems to be chugging along, releasing feature after feature. I can’t imagine not using them.

    January 23, 2009 at 9:17 pm
  25. PXLated

    “Live without” might be too specific/extreme. In the scheme of things I can’t think of any including Web-1.0 companies I couldn’t live without. They’re all ancillary.

    January 23, 2009 at 8:58 pm