2008 WAS the year of Facebook, Hulu, and Twitter. For a while I was wondering what Web sites, come next year, we’ll agree had the most impact in 2009, but then I decided to make a few educated predictions. And I chose them from among the sea of new or up-and-coming sites you may not have heard of yet.

You’ve probably never heard of many of these Web sites—but chances are, you’ll be using some of them regularly by the end of this year.

TV.com

In May 2008, we predicted Hulu.com’s rise to prominence and its ascent was a huge win for NBC Universal,which owns Hulu (along with News Corporation).

tv_com

But CBS is not taking that lying down. When it acquired the tech Web site CNet last year, it bought the rights to the TV.com domain; now it has added full-length primetime shows and movies (not just clips) to the site from partners such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, PBS, and Sony—plus content from CBS-owned Showtime.

TV.com relaunched in January. Before that, the site oZered only promo clips, cast pro[les, interviews, and discussions—yet it had 16.5 million viewers per month. _at number should climb steadily during 2009 thanks to the new video content. Still, the video quality, even of the high-defnition stuff, can’t match the clarity of Hulu’s offerings. That will have to improve if CBS wants to dethrone Hulu as “Web video central” this year.

Qik

Qik.com provides a platform where you can easily stream and share live video from your cell phone’s camera. At the site, you can [nd live video streams being shot by Qik members around the world. This is great for family clips, allowing grandparents in the United States to watch their baby grandson in Italy in real time, for example.

qik_com

After you’re done streaming your video live, Qik will archive the video. If you set it up to do so, Qik will send the video to YouTube, your blog, or your Facebook page, too. Using Qik doesn’t require a fancy smart phone; an inexpensive, Java-based cell phone will do the job.

Boxee

Boxee (boxee.tv) gathers video from all over the Web (CNN.com, Hulu, YouTube, and many others) and puts it in a neat and simple-to-use interface. _is creates a programming guide for Internet video, so you don’t have to surf around. Boxee organizes video, images, and music on your hard drive, as well.

boxee_tv

Any Web video destination must solve the user’s basic problem—“What do I watch when I don’t know what I want to watch?”—in order to keep eyeballs glued to the screen. Boxee enables you to get recommendations from perhaps the best source you have: your friends. After forming friend groups with other Boxee users, you can see what they’re watching or they can suggest stuff to you.

Currently Boxee runs on Intel-based Macs, Apple TV, and Linux machines. A Windows version should be out soon, the company says.

BlackBerry Application Storefront

Research in Motion’s BlackBerry handhelds and the software that runs on them have become sexier and more entertainment-oriented, introducing an element of fun to devices that have traditionally been business tools.

blackberry_com

RIM is taking a page from the iPhone playbook by opening a store for independently developed programs, called the BlackBerry Application Storefront. Current (and prospective) BlackBerry users are no doubt eager to see the new apps, and the Web site that displays and sells them will certainly be a popular place this year. A e Storefront is slated to open in March.

Loopt

A major trend in mobile apps is the ability to detect your location and to use that information in practical and compelling ways. Loopt (www.loopt.com) its that bill perfectly, mainly because it combines location awareness with social networking.

loopt_com

Loopt displays a map showing your position and the position of your friends who are in the vicinity. Once you have pinpointed their location, Loopt can detect businesses in the area and make suggestions for a meeting place based on your interests or queries (“beer, pizza, bowling”). You can read what friends have said about prospective meeting spots, or see reviews from Yelp.

When you’ve found a destination, you can invite your friends and access directions, as can your friends. You can also and new friends by looking for other Loopt users who have similar interests (favorite bars, say) to yours.

Blip.fm

I’m not the first to make the comparison, but Blip.fm is like Twitter for music. You see a scrolling list of people’s song choices with their short comments (called blips). You can listen to “blipped” tunes as they come, or skip through the list. If you like particular users (called DJs), you can give them “props” for the songs they play, or you can “follow” them. After you’ve found several DJs that you decide to follow, you can switch to a mode where you see only that group’s blips.

blip_fm

If you think of a song you want to blip, just search for it, make your selection from the results, write a comment, and click Send—your blip then joins the stream of other blips. It’s surprisingly engaging and fun, especially if you find good DJs to follow or if your real-world friends sign up and participate.

Power.com

There aren’t many sites with 5 million users that we have not heard of, but Power.com was one, and it’s a name you might hear a lot more often. The “social inter-networking” site operates on the premise that many people now belong to several social networks and that it’s a hassle to log in to each one and post on it separately.

power_com

Power.com lets you log in once and then view (and post to) any of a long list of social networking sites that you sync it with. You can see the posts and status changes of friends on multiple social networks, and simultaneously send messages or updates to all of those sites. You can also log in to MSN and send IMs from within Power.com.

Late last year Facebook complained about Power’s ability to store Facebook users’ passwords and to access Facebook users’ content. After all, Facebook has its own scheme for connecting to multiple networks, Facebook Connect. Facebook Iled suit when talks with Power failed. Power says the companies are now working out their diJerences.

Tweetag

Millions of people around the world are adding content (in short dispatches called tweets) to the Twitter stream every day. Some of the content is actually worth reading—serious discussions, not just idle chatter.

tweetag_com

Tweetag (www.tweetag.com) is a sort of search engine for tweets. You can use it to look for trends in topics publicly discussed on Twitter, and to Ind discussions of things that matter to you.

On the front page you see a tag cloud showing the most discussed topics on Twitter right now. You can search for Twitter messages containing a particular keyword, too, aGer which Tweetag suggests other keywords to help narrow down your results. Using tabs, Tweetag organizes results based on whether they are “re-tweets” (another Twitterer seconding an idea), replies to tweets, or tweets that contain questions or links.

Hi5

Hi5 (www.hi5.com), the thirdlargest social network in the world, is virtually unheard of in the United States. That could change. Hi5 typically has 60 million unique visitors every month, most of them in other countries (40 percent come from Spanishspeaking nations). Word has it that more U.S. users are discovering the site.

hi5_com

The music and video applications at Hi5 rival those of other, more popular social networks, and Hi5’s mobile app is first-rate. Hi5 won’t be bigger than Facebook in the U.S. by the end of the year, but it will have grown signiIcantly, and it will have given many people an attractive alternative to try out.

Tripit

Tripit (www.tripit.com) is designed to be your personal, full-service travel assistant. For me, a typical trip involves a number of modes of travel—planes, trains, taxis, and so on—as well as restaurants and hotels. All of that adds up to a lot of details to track. Usually I make a hard copy of all my reservations, staple them together, and carry the bundle with me.

tripit_com

Tripit aggregates those kinds of details; adds handy tools such as maps, local attractions, dinner reservations, and weather reports; and then wraps everything up in an easy-to-use master itinerary. You can alleviate much of the stress of travel by having the right information at the right time, and that is what Tripit offers. I think a lot of new users will reach the same conclusion.

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