The Top 100 Web Sites of 2010 - Classics: Shopping
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Amazon
We try to support local businesses as much as we can, but sometimes it's just impossible to say no to Amazon's almost consistently low prices on, well, everything—movies, music, clothes, milk. Of course, books are still at the heart of the service and likely will be for the foreseeable future, seeing as how the company has more or less dominated the e-book market.
The Consumerist
Between Web scams, misleading labels, bad customer service, and rampant overbilling, the world of consumer affairs can be a scary place. Fortunately, this Gawker-run run blog is looking out for us little guys and gals. The Consumerist's tagline is "Shoppers bite back." Send along a tip to let the site's team of editors know where to sink their teeth.
Etsy
Lots of people make lots of cool things, be it clothing, furniture, art, jewelry, toys, and much more—but they often don't know where to sell those wares, and odds are you may not know where to buy them. Etsy is where you can all meet.
Restaurant.com
You want a deal on a meal? Restaurant.com offers some amazing savings on dinners at the best non-chain joints you can find, with a typical printable coupon offering $25 off the meal. And you only pay $10 (or sometimes less) for it. It's like buying food money, cheap.
The Top 100 Web Sites of 2010 - Classics: News
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BBC
Sometimes it's important to get a global perspective on the latest news. The official site for the world's largest broadcasting organization offers a fittingly comprehensive multimedia look at the world of news, entertainment, and sport coverage (snooker, anyone?).
Legistalker
There are 100 senators and 435 voting members of the House of Representatives. Suffice it to say, that's a lot of lawmakers to keep track of. Legistalker, thankfully, manages the whole process nicely, keeping track of members of Congress through Twitter, YouTube, and hundreds of news sources, with clean feeds that are updated every 20 seconds. Search for a zip code, state, or name to find a member. The site also lists Web sites, e-mail addresses, and phone number for members of Congress—for when liking them on Facebook just isn't enough.
The New York Times
The paper of record is now the Web site of record, thanks to some of the best continued new journalism around. Don't think that The Old Gray Lady is stuck on old media, however. The Times has embraced Web 2.0, while still maintaining its commitment to quality coverage. Its Bits Blog is a must for all tech enthusiasts—even if it's not too fond of the word "tweet."
SI.com
The online home of Sports Illustrated brings you all the same great images and commentary you get in the print magazine, and a lot more, including up-to-the-minute scoreboards.
The Top 100 Web Sites of 2010 - Classics: Info
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Craigslist
Craig Newmark's site may not be the flashiest the Web has to offer, but with a decade and a half of experience, you won't find a better resource for classifieds. Craigslist has it all—jobs, apartments, garage sales, dates, etc.—in more than 500 locations in 50 countries. And while you're there, be sure to check out the Best of Craigslist page for some of the funniest, strangest, and most entertaining listings the site has to offer.
Howcast
There's no lack of help and how-to sites on the Interwebs, but Howcast does it better by only featuring how-to videos. While there are some from individuals, most of the featured videos have high production values and good advice.
iFixIt
If Wikipedia and Yahoo Answers had a kid that only told you how to fix electronics, it would be iFixit. The site even sells you parts and equipment to make repairs to computers, phones, game consoles, and more.
IMDB
What was the name of that one actor who played the German guy in The Big Lebowski? No, I'm not talking about the one from The Red Hot Chili Peppers—the other one. You know, the guy from Fargo. No, not Steve Buscemi—the other one. Peter Stormare? Yeah, that's his name. Oh look, apparently, he was on an episode of Seinfeld. Man, what did we do before IMDB?
Indeed
You don't need to look for a job. Indeed will look for you, searching listing all around the Web and beyond. It posts as many as a million jobs a week, but you can narrow that down by location and keyword to get the new career opportunity you want.
Kayak
Kayak is the travel metasearch to end all travel metasearches, drawing flight, car, and hotel deals from company sites and fellow aggregators, such as Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline, and Travelocity. If there's a travel deal to be had, you'll find it here.
Metacritic
Why rely on the opinions of one critic, when you can get all of them at the same time. Like Rotten Tomatoes before it, Metacritic aggregates reviews from some of the most respected outlets in the game, while doing that site a few better by including TV, music, and gaming reviews on top of its movie offerings.
Snopes
For the love of Sasquatch, if you forward on that e-mail about kidney stealing, the new über-virus, phone scams, or anything else that seems scary-but-true before checking with Snopes to see if it's just a quickly propagating urban legend, we'll feed you Coke and Pop Rocks.
TED.com
Since 1984, TED has been bringing together some of the brightest minds in technology, entertainment, and design (T.E.D., get it?) to "give the talk of their lives." Two conferences occur annually—TED in California and TEDGlobal in Oxford. TED.com is a repository for some of the most intriguing and thought-provoking speeches from some of the smartest people around.
Wikipedia
We don't recommend that you cite this free encyclopedia in your research paper (that is, unless you're doing a piece on crowd sourcing), but you'd be hard-pressed to find a more complete compendium of information, with 16 million articles—3.3 million of which are in English (yes, we got that information from Wikipedia). And, as a number of recent studies have found, the site is surprisingly accurate—still, those footnotes are there for a reason.