January 05, 2010, 1:59 PM — A year ago, I chose ten sites and services to watch in 2009. Of those ten--TV.com, Qik, Boxee, Loopt, Blip.fm, Power.com, Tweetag, Hi5, Tripit, and BlackBerry AppWorld--only Boxee and (to a lesser extent) Blip.fm became well-known names in the past 12 months. According to Web-analytics company Alexia, though, Tripit and Qik saw significant growth in 2009, and Qik's time in the sun may still be coming. Truth is, the past 12 months were a tough time for any new site or service to find its legs--just staying alive was doing pretty good.
So I'll give myself a score of 20 percent for last year. But this year will be different--I've gone for some safer bets this time. My picks for 2010 include Websites, Web services, and mobile sites; since so many sites and services now run on desktops and on mobile platforms, it seems pointless to make a distinction. I did not, however, select any mobile apps, which I still consider a different category. With that in mind, here are the sites and services that I think have a decent shot of leaping into the limelight during 2010.
1. Fancast Xfinity TV
After a long period of talking about it, Comcast has finally released a Web-based version of its cable TV programming. With its new service, Fancast Xfinity TV, you can watch your cable shows on your PC, on demand. The service rolled out to two high-end package groups last week, and right now offers about 2000 hours of TV and movie programming. I expect the service to extend to subscribers of less-expensive cable packages next year, and to add progressively more content.
I've been waiting for Comcast to get its game on with this product, simply because the company is well positioned with content owners (studios and the like) to put out a lot of Web video--all searchable and on demand. Fancast Xfinity TV could evolve into the place on the Web where you have the best chance of finding something to watch when you don't know exactly what you want to watch.
Early tests of the new service show a dearth of searchable content (Comcast had to get permission from each and every content partner to include their shows in the service), and that it's a little tough to use, but I expect those problems to go away -- the first one quickly, the second one gradually.
2. Bing
When Bing appeared in mid-2009, many people were skeptical. We wondered if Microsoft had the vision and talent to take on Google. The Google approach to search had, for most people, become the de facto standard, and had gone pretty much unquestioned. But Bing has proved itself by reworking many aspects of search, offering image search and viewing, adding the ability to search Twitter tweets, and even integrating search results from semantic search engine Wolfram Alpha.
After Bing's release the site quickly captured a sizable share of Web searches, becoming a legitimate competitor to Google. Though Google is still far ahead with better than 70 percent of all searches, Bing's share continues to rise: Today, Bing gets about 10 percent of Web searches.
I believe Bing's star is still rising. This year, look for Bing to make a serious run at Google in Web search. Remember, too, that Microsoft Office 2010 will be offering Web-based components at Windows Live, which will draw a lot of users--and many of them will be doing searches.
3. Android Market
