It’s year end and I want to pull some interesting web data points together. It’s how I look at the world from the online space in 2008, given that I spend so much time online reading, researching, writing and learning, given that my job is web focused, given that I enjoy shopping and socializing online, and given that I believe that there are still a lot of fun and creative things that we can do on the web!

• Many hopes are on Omaba: here are the Top 10 Ways Obama Can Change American Culture and the Change.gov has a lot of the social applications and social thinking in it

• Hot Products - Toys and Electronics Categories: Hitwise has this analysis in Dec for these two holiday categories:

• Another look at holiday shopping: Holiday comparison - Brick & mortar vs. online-only retailers from Hitwise

• The First iGoogle Banking Gadget Released By Fidelity in Dec: you can see some screenshots here or try it out yourself

• Top 10 Consumer Web Apps of 2008: by ReadWriteWeb

• Burger King launches a perfume that smells like meat, named Flamed by BK: isn’t this funny! more detail on TechCrunch

• Get a taxi from your iPhone at the push of a button: TaxMagic is featured on TechCrunch

• Mint, the popular financial website, is getting more features out of the door: you can now watch every penny in your account on the go with it’s iPhone application. featured on TechCrunch

• Omiture is extending its SiteCatalyst measurement tool to native iPhone applications. Some other analytics suites also offer this service on iPhone

• USA Today redesigned its iPhone news portal: and it is a lot prettier (screenshots on VentureBeat)

You see the trends:

• changes are everywhere, big changes and small changes
• people need to have fun no matter what
• it’s all going to be the mobile

Have a fun and changing holiday season!

Tags: 2008, Add new tag, change, getting mobile, mobile, web in general

What can I say about Google? There are too many things we could argue about this giant Internet company. This week, two new features from them really made me happy

1. the Gmail theme - Isn’t it nice that I can choose different skins for my Gmail. Some themes are dynamic, meaning they might change based on your location. I’m using the tea hour theme now. I’ll see if the sun goes down when it’s afternoon. Also see TechCrunch. Takeaway: sometime, one product wins, not only because of all the functional features that they provide, but also the little cute and emotional features that they bring to life.
2. the Google Mobile applications - I wanted so bad to use Google map from cell phone. Here it comes! I can use Google map on my cell phone the way I use it online! It made my travel a lot easier when I need to find directions on the way, when I try to find a restaurant to meet friends, when I want to know the traffic sitting in the car…it is helpful! Check it out yourself. Takeaway: when something is helpful, it will be a great feature quickly no matter what it takes.

Tags: gmail, google, mobile, web in general, web marketing