What are your five favourite websites of the last year?
March 14, 2012 7:39 AM   Subscribe

What are the top five awesome websites you've found in the last year?

I'm writing reviews of beautiful websites that are unique in what they do, or at least extremely good at it. Websites that make you think and fill a functional gap you didn't know was there. That are trying to do something new and do it well.

My examples would be:

What Movie Should I Watch Tonight
Letters of Note
The Setup
You Are Not So Smart
The Burning House
This is Colossal

What are your five best of the last year?
posted by rudhraigh to Computers & Internet (24 answers total) 335 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is more of a utility than a content-driven website, but Readability is my new favoritest thing ever. It goes well with Longform. There is nothing better than lying in bed on a lazy morning and reading articles in a crisp, clean format with no ads or distractions on my portable device of choice.
posted by desjardins at 7:46 AM on March 14, 2012 [5 favorites]




Wordle - Generates word clouds.
FoodWishes - Entertaining video tutorials on how to cook different foods.
TinyPic - No nonsense image hosting
Fatwallet - Great place to find coupon codes for online stores
posted by royalsong at 7:55 AM on March 14, 2012


Probably not what you're looking for, but technically answers your question- Emotional Bag Check was awesome, but too awesome to be of this virtual world.
posted by teekat at 7:57 AM on March 14, 2012


If we're including apps, then Flipboard is a must.
posted by desjardins at 7:57 AM on March 14, 2012


Ones that have stood out recently:

Pinterest
Hot UK Deals (UK specific)
Teledraw
posted by hnnrs at 8:16 AM on March 14, 2012 [1 favorite]


This has been around for awhile but I hadn't bothered to check it out until recently: The Onion AV Club. What impresses me is that they do a lot of quality reviews of cultural items that go beyond the "beat-by-beat recap of an episode with a little bit of snark" that is typical for the genre. In addition, the community of commentors that they have recruited is fairly high quality.
posted by mmascolino at 8:54 AM on March 14, 2012 [1 favorite]


Futility Closet - snippets of math, science, history, poetry, oddities, hoaxes, and tons more.
posted by xbonesgt at 9:38 AM on March 14, 2012 [4 favorites]


pinboard, saves all yer links, what del.icio.us should've been.
posted by halatukit at 9:41 AM on March 14, 2012 [3 favorites]




Asana - Project/task management
Join.me - Easy remote control/conferencing
ICloud - Far from obscure, but I just recently discovered how polished and useful it can be
Mint - It's been around awhile, just started using it...very impressed!
BillMonk - Very useful site for managing a debt matrix between friends.
posted by samsara at 10:02 AM on March 14, 2012


My favorite rediscovery in the last year: tywkiwdbi
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 10:50 AM on March 14, 2012


Not all obscure but I love all of these:

Khan Academy - you've probably heard of it already but still...
Onefinestay.com - luxury short-term rentals in London
WeTransfer - no nonsense large file delivery.
posted by HopStopDon'tShop at 11:14 AM on March 14, 2012


You Are Listening to Los Angeles and it's sibling sites. (There's a bunch of cities now and some 'special' combinations, something in the vicinity of five.) Took a thing and another thing, put them together in a unique and elegant way, and became incredible. Chocolate and peanut butter. Lucy and Desi. Rock and roll.
posted by carsonb at 11:34 AM on March 14, 2012 [4 favorites]


Wirecutter - gadgets - shopping recommendations
posted by leigh1 at 2:46 PM on March 14, 2012 [2 favorites]


Douban.fm (Chinese) like pandora but with much more international focus with songs in French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese and English. I'm very impressed with it.
ChinaSmack, internet stories and meme from Chinese internet users
Fitocracy, turn fitness into a game.
Quora, sort of like askme but different community
Stack Exchange. I mostly have used Stack Overflow for programming questions.
posted by Carius at 5:55 PM on March 14, 2012 [1 favorite]


I think some people here need help learning how to count to five. But anyway, here are five websites, I think.

Remarkable Marbles for learning memory techniques.
Chess Tempo for whittling down chess basics.
Cognitive Fun for figuring out how perceptive I am at any time of the day.
Instant Death Typeracer for really improving my typing speed.
Daily Deviations on Deviant Art for daily inspirations, and what not.
posted by weewooweewoo at 6:56 PM on March 14, 2012 [5 favorites]


NerdFitness for fitness and lifestyle awesomeness
Tony Gentilcore's fitness blog (lifting, mostly)
Mark's Daily Apple - diet and lifestyle
saveyourself.ca - accessible, readably scientific approach to pain management
Sweat Science - critical thinking applied to sports science (an industry which desperately needs it)
posted by lonefrontranger at 8:06 PM on March 14, 2012 [4 favorites]






http://www.darkroastedblend.com/ Weird and wonderful things.

http://blort.meepzorp.com/ Strange things.

http://www.likecool.com/index-77.html Neat gadgets and stuff.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/ Various self help forums.

http://www.wimp.com/ Best videos on the web.
posted by sybarite09 at 6:28 AM on March 16, 2012 [1 favorite]


I visit these sites almost every single day (in some cases several times a day):

Pinboard - no-nonsense linksaver, but here's why it's also cool: you can search other users' tags, which is a GREAT way to find new stuff.

A Continuous Lean - my go-to place for men's fashion. Fair Warning: it's pretty USA-centric in aesthetics and discussion (there's even a section called "The American List" which is all about goods made in the States).

Duck Duck Go - this has replaced Google search for me.

The Bygone Bureau - young and smart articles across a wide spectrum of topics. Goes great with my Instapaper.

Not quite 5 but that's all I can think of.
posted by Doleful Creature at 7:15 PM on March 17, 2012 [2 favorites]


Some which have not been mentioned that I love (more websites than traditional "blogs")

Fivebooks - for book addicts like myself I think this is the most dangerous website on the internet - every day a guest expert picks 5 books on their subject that anyone should read. Its rare I have not bought at least two-four books a week off this site.

Readmill - Part app, part website- this is like a version of goodreads that was designed by people who actually cared about design, my main reading platform.

If This Then That Connect up apps or sites that you like so that they work together. very useful for putting articles in instapaper or pinboard or similar tasks - but you can do a lot with it - surprisingly easy to use considering how complex it should be.

Critical Distance Do you like video games? Are you interested in a single weekly summary of the best critical discussions in the blogosphere (rather than 500 posts announcing that title XYZ has new screenshots) - then this is the blog to read each week.

Quietube Youtube has a lot of great videos, but nearly everything else about the site is horrendous. This website fixes that by stripping all the junk away.
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 12:26 PM on March 18, 2012 [3 favorites]


From a friend who builds recumbents: the most comprehensive list of commercially-made recumbent tricycles.
posted by aniola at 6:51 PM on April 8, 2012


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