Qwerky

Would You Give Your First Born To Name Websites Like These?

Some qwerky suggestions for webapps. A bit on the cynical side. I’m sure you can guess which webapps these ones are parodying.

Social Networking

• Hi5-O
• ClinkedIn

News

• Rigg

School

• KeggsList
• Faithbook

Entertainment and Sports

• FumbleUpon
• Speedoo

Consumer Reviews

• GrumbleUpon
• Ask Questions

Social Bookmarking

• Blanklist

Love and Dating

• StagNation

Get the full story here.

Mapping Web 2.0

The serious one shows color-coded regions where the given social networks are popular. I don’t think LiveJournal is comparable to MySpace, but just look at that! Curiously, there’s not one website that dominates equally across continents. According to the article, Hi5 is the most diverse.

The funny one depicts the popular places on the web both as land forms and water forms. Remember, it’s only an approximation!

The mashed up one shows which country made which web application. Not comprehensive, but I’d love to see this when it’s become more comprehensive than ever.

The confusing one lets you navigate through Web 2.0 much like a Tokyo Subway map. (Because unsurprisingly, it’s made by Japanese information architects.) It shows an interesting combination of how successful they predict these webapps will be, as well as other relationships like Chinese-made websites and political blogs.

Don’t forget eBoy’s eCities! (Not exactly maps but they’re the most astounding of all.)

Top 10 Worst Web App Names

Read/WriteWeb has posted a list of the 10 Worst Web App Names.

I don’t particularly with every single one of the ten, but makes for a good laugh.

Mahalo

Jason Calacanis’ secret “Project X” has finally launched and it’s called Mahalo. It’s a human-powered search engine, meaning anyone can supposedly suggest helpful results for search keywords. And if your searches are good enough, you can get paid as a reward.

The interface, despite its pastel/Hawaiian/nature-loving look, seems to behave more like a highly customized wiki (MediaWiki, to be specific) than a search engine, even if this controversial blogger claims he’s got no plans of killing that website format, which, coincidentally, is also named after a Hawaiian word. In fact, the secondary goal of Mahalo is to help fund Wikipedia itself:

…So, you can make the world better 2x: first by making clean, spam- free search results and second by helping keep the Wikipedia running (those server bills ain’t cheap!).

We’ve earmarked up to $250,000 in donations to the Wikipedia this year.

Source: Mahalo Greenhouse Launches

Now that’s pretty kind for someone who declared war against the search engine optimization industry and got called all sorts of colorful names for it.

Web 2.0 Validator Score
5/65

The Formula
Foreign Word

Confirmed Etymology
“thank you”, “(May you be) in (Divine) Breath.”

Belongs to Circle Number
2, The Metaphor

Not to Be Consfused With
PayPerPost, Squidoo

Did You Know…
“…that Mahalo.com is a human-powered search engine whose lead investor Sequoia Capital helped start both Yahoo! and Google?”

Wakoopa

It’s no longer enough that you declare every little thing you’re doing right now. Wakoopa wants you to download an unobtrusive piece of software, track the programs you use, and send that information to their website. Sounds a lot like spyware, right? These days they call it “software gone social”. And I can’t blame them one bit—we love sharing all these little things about ourselves.

It doesn’t stop there. Since Wakoopa is more or less a social network for people who use software, we’ve got groups (”teams”), comments (”reviews”), and of course, our own profile pages where others can discover which media player do we watch those questionable videos with.

The biggest surprise: the name Wakoopa isn’t gibberish! It actually stands for something (I asked).

Imagine if they used their slogan as their name. You’d get SoGoSo!

Web 2.0 Validator Score
10/66

The Formula
Acronymity, Doublized (”We discovered later that we also comply with the “double o” rule of successful companies: just like Google and Yahoo we have “oo” in our name!”)

Confirmed Etymology
W.A.K.O.O.P.A., “Where All Kinds Of Original Progs Appear”

Belongs to Circle Number
4, The Cab Calloway

Also a Great Name For
Donuts

Brownie Points For
The Pink and Green Color Scheme!