It is indeed difficult to determine decisively which the top ten websites of 2008 are - without kicking up some controversy or inviting criticisms. An attempt to name the top ten can be made based on the quantum of traffic a site attracted during the year under review or a site people eagerly visited and fell in love with or a site visitors were addicted to.
Google:
Google continues to be a lead search engine most professionals continue to rely on to access information on practically every subject under the sun. But there is more to Google than that. Google is arguably the world’s largest and scalable platform for developing web-based applications.
Google's stature today is the result of more than a decade’s systems software research.
Craigslist:
In any list of top ten websites of 2008, Craiglist will find a place. Craigslist is a Web pioneer in classified advertisement market that has grown from strength to strength, and carries advertisements ranging from real estate and household items to employment, platonic friendship, romance and one-night stands.
Craigslist is continuously spreading its wings and has lately added 100 additional cities making the site's services available in over 500 cities across the globe.
Wikipedia:
Despite its share of critics and admirers, Wikipedia remains unchallenged as the premier online encyclopedia on the Web. Wikipedia is a people-friendly site as any user can create or edit a Wikipedia page with some marginal restrictions.
YouTube:
YouTube has rapidly grown over the years and is indisputably the largest video site on the Web today. Several thousands of movies, TV shows, and a plethora of homemade videos are available on YouTube. YouTube has achieved some path-breaking developments in 2008, most notably the addition of wider screen video formats with superior quality.
Facebook:
Facebook has been hailed by many as the best social networking site and users are in love with its straightforward and perfect design. Facebook has facilitated finding people one knows, and it today has a huge fan following. The site has countless add-on applications including games, interactive maps and quizzes. Anyone wishing to enlarge the friends circle need not look beyond Facebook
Amazon:
It is common knowledge that Amazon is America's giant online retailer. Web analysts confirm the domain attracted more than 615 million visitors during 2008. This is no mean achievement as the figure is twice that of walmart.com.
Amazon has the unique feature of allowing users to submit reviews to the web page of each product. With Amazon, one can download free music, get previews of one’s favorite books, and read reviews of products from other customers.
Flickr:
Flickr is an online photo management and image and video hosting website. Its aim is to help people make photos available to the known circle. One can join Flicker for free and begin sharing images immediately. Pro accounts are also available for those who want to add and display high volumes of photos. As of November 2008, it claims to have host more than 3 billion images. Flickr popularity goes well beyond the circle of professional photographers.
ESPN:
All sports lovers will be up in arms if ESPN is not accorded a place in the list of top ten websites of 2008 as more and more people agree that ESPN has become synonymous with sports.
Sports enthusiasts, and they are legion, are glued to ESPN for watching all types of tournaments and hearing expert comments, and later tune in again for the video highlights, games and podcasts. People sign up for ESPN Alerts - by text message and download small-screen videos.
BBC:
Many believe American news media quite often over-dramatizes and dishes out sensationalism and less objective in news presentation. The British Broadcasting Corporation is respected worldwide as the most objective media of international reporting. The BBC is the right place to find news about all world happenings updated in real-time with consistently high quality articles. This news institution retained its supremacy throughout 2008 as the best place on the Web to unbiased information.
TMZ:
TMZ is a popular celebrity gossip and news website owned by AOL and Telepictures that provides an inside look at the latest celebrity scandals. In today’s age and time, there is obviously no better way spread gossip than to put it online.
Many visitors acknowledge the site that they prefer helps relieve stress and boredom of daily life even if it contains some untruth and distortions. Regular visitors to these types of websites apparently waste a lot of precious time. But these visitors contend that if a site offers fun, then time is not wasted.
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