Time magazine's recently published list of the 50 Best Websites for 2007 is a mix of hits and misses. On the plus side, they included social tagging site StumbleUpon (an excellent choice, though Zimbio and Searchles, two of the best tagging sites, are overlooked), Netvibes and Stockpickr. Online backup service Mozy took the top spot; it's a very useful and reasonably priced service, but THE BEST website? That may be a stretch.
On the other hand, some picks are highly questionable. INGDirect? One of the better online banking sites, but "one of the best 50 websites" seems mighty ambitious. Global warming propaganda site Ecofoot.org is a just plain bizarre choice for anyone intelligent enough not to buy Al Gore's inconvenient fantasy wholesale. (There have been half a dozen ice ages on earth over the last 600,000 years, punctuated by periods of warming—one of which we are in right now. SUVs and "carbon footprints" didn't cause any of the preceding warming periods, and they aren't causing this one.)
The worst pick of all, however, has to be NowPublic. On this pathetic site, "citizen reporters" post "news" items about George Bush making himself dictator and a five-year-old Austrian artist relieving his bladder on a photo collage of world leaders. Post anything remotely related to capitalism, however, and the powers that be will threaten you with banishment from their site.
NowPublic is worse than irrelevant; it is a prime example of the arrogance of the web elite, the phenomenon of arrogant self-appointed arbiters of what's important squashing individual freedom on the web. The absurdly named Open Directory (a.k.a. dmoz.org) is a prime example; their human editors often take months to add a new site (if they add it at all), then penalize site owners for submitting their site more than once (even if the owner submitted it months ago and is wondering why it isn't appearing). Worse, many categories have no editor, and qualified volunteers are routinely rejected.
Another prime example, sadly, is the once highly regarded Slashdot. Ruined by success, the now pompous rulers of the site routintely reject suitable articles (reference this, this, this, or any of other 711,000 hits you'll get on Google for "rejected by Slashdot").
Granted, any "best" list is hard. DZone (which is now what Slashdot used to be when it was cool) belongs on the list. Beyond that, it's tough. Most of the sites I visit are valuable for some narrow purpose, but wouldn't belong on a general "top 50" list. FindTechBlogs, for example, is a great site if you're looking for technology bloggers (though dougmcclure.net is conspicuous by its absence, a definite oversight).
What sites make your top (or bottom) 50 list?
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