The Top 100 Web Sites of 2010 Here are our picks for the hottest Web sites and Web trends of the year, plus some old favorites to enjoy.
 Watching our annual list of Top 100 Web Sites evolve over the years has been a fairly fascinating process. In a way, the Top 100—particularly the Undiscovered portion—can be viewed as a microcosm of the Web at large. The sites that tend to make the list are indicative of larger trends that have dominated the Web for the previous 12 months.
One of the biggest trends of the past few years has been the rise of the mobile app. Thanks to devices like the iPhone and iPad, many users are doing a large portion of their Web browsing on something other than their PC. For that reason, the trend toward Web-based app development has waned. Instead of building cloud-based apps for browsers, many developers have moved toward mobile app development.
Those sites that do still target PC users must offer their content in a mobile form to compete. While there are no mobile-only sites here, a good chunk of those on the list are also available as mobile apps or in some other phone-friendly version.
As the landscape becomes ever more crowded, the need for site aggregation and content filters becomes ever more apparent. Perhaps, somewhat ironically, we found ourselves in the position of weeding through dozens of sites that promise to filter the increasing noise. Some of the better news, search, and travel aggregating/filtering sites made it through. Speaking of filtering, we've got a few strict guidelines that we use as we pour through hundreds of suggestions from readers, staff, and friends. As mentioned above, none of the sites in the Top 100 are mobile only. The sites also can't be download-based—that means no browser plug-ins and no desktop apps. The sites also have to be free—they can have a premium counterpart, sure, but the free version has to be worth recommending on its own merits.
The distinction between Classics and Undiscovered is a bit trickier. The one hard and fast rule is that if the site has been on the Top 100 before, it's out of contention for the Undiscovered list. The other guidelines are a combination of time, traffic, and exposure. Just because a site is on the Undiscovered list doesn't mean that no one has ever used it—we just assume that the majority of our readers will be unfamiliar. It's a way of distinguishing the list from other Top 100s, which are often populated only by Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo products.
Many of those products do end up on the Classics list—but again, for the sake of variety and discovery, we try to limit them even there. It would be easy to put, say, 25 Google sites on the lists, but that's not really helpful, is it?
So read, explore, enjoy, and discuss. And while you're at it, start recommending sites in our comments area for 2011. It's never too early to start the hunt.
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