Directory 2.0

Want to be completely overwhelmed? Go visit Go2Web2.0, a directory of all the second wave sites on the Internet.

More accurately, it is a directory of 1333 such “Web 2.0” services. That’s not bad for about a year’s worth of curating links to sites about blogging, collaboration, photos, communication and other applications where the users interact to form the content.

The tag cloud for Go2Web2.0 is intimidating enough, let alone the actual directory of sites.

The site is managed by Orli Yakuel—whose blog is filled with reviews of these kinds of sites—and Eyal Shahar, a user Experience specialist for Mantis ltd. Their work in creating and maintaining this directory underscores two Internet truths:

1. There is no shortage of ideas.
2. You can’t be a member of every community.

The directory consists of a grid of small logo icons that can be filtered by type. Mousing over a given icon will reveal a little one-line description of what that site does. Clicking on it pulls out a bottom tray containing a promotional page hosted on that site’s own servers.

Thanks to Mark Bell for tweeting a link to this directory of Web 2.0 apps.

Not everything is rosy, of course. There is a Firefox plug-in, apparently, but attempts to retrieve it were met with server errors. (Today, servers of interest all over the InterTubes are struggling for me.) There is also some glitchy interference with some of my other Firefox extensions, like BlogRovR, where apps seem to collide. And the reliance on remote servers makes the site too pokey, with few of the panel detail pages loading. It may be less stressful to just read the archives of Orli’s blog.