Read/WriteWeb

The Museum of Modern Betas is an excellent resource for finding out trends in (beta) web apps. A new list that caught my eye recently was the Beta Quotient for Germany - i.e. a list of 100 web 2.0 apps from Germany (betas and non-betas).

Germany has a beta quotient of  "more than 50%", but what I really wanted to know was: what are the top web apps in Germany? I asked Markus from MoMB, who actually lives in Germany, what he thought the top german web apps are. Based on his responses, here is my summary:

According to Markus, openBC and spreadshirt are "the poster children" of web 2.0 in Germany and probably ranked 1 and 2 in terms of native web 2.0 sites. Both have a german language interface when you come from a german IP address.

openBC is a business-focused social networking app - at first glance similar to LinkedIn. It is also multilingual, with an eye on the international business market. I was able to look around the english version of the site and it seems to offer a bit more than LinkedIn - e.g. over 2,000 groups to get access to specialist knowledge and expertise.

spreadshirt is what appears to be a tee-shirt printing online shop. It looks similar to CafePress, the US website that does the same thing.

Other top German Web 2.0 sites are:

studiverzeichnis - a Facebook clone that claims to have 250,000 users. Apparently Facebook plans to enter the german market soon though...

lycos iq - similar to Yahoo Answers.

qype - user generated reviews of locations; currently 5000 users, but gaining steam says Markus.

sevenload - a Youtube/Flickr hybrid.

hitflip - a social media (cds, dvds, games) trading site.

photocase - photo sharing site.

mister wong - social bookmarking (excellent name!).

yigg - a digg clone that has a hamster for a logo.

Thanks Markus for all the info about the German 2.0 market!

I'd love to get similar info about other international markets, so contact me if you'd like to contribute your country's top web apps. The tech blogosphere gets so insular about the US sometimes. It's good to remind ourselves now and then that a whole world exists beyond Silicon Valley.

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Comments

# 1

Germans seem to have an incredible taste of design, I always found something unique in their designs.

Sevenload has an upward-pointing arrow on each box, taking you to the 'new' or 'top' videos/pics of that particular stream. I personally haven't seen this design experiment earlier. Qype has a neat interface too, very distinctive. Photocase has snazzy tabs and buttons and Lycos.de seems to be the best designed site in the Lycos network.

Nice find though, richard.

Posted by: Ebrahim | July 28, 2006 07:45 AM

# 2

By the way, Lycos IQ was long there, before Yahoo answers launched. Therefore it is not faire to call it a Yahoo Answers clone

Posted by: Pure-PHP.de | July 28, 2006 08:41 AM

# 3

They must have done something terrible wrong. From those ten I only knew two. :-D

Posted by: Dominik Hahn | July 28, 2006 11:19 AM

# 4

Thanks Pure-PHP.de, I've updated the Lycos IQ entry to remove the reference to cloning.

Posted by: Richard MacManus | July 28, 2006 04:20 PM

# 5

my top favorites are openBC, spreadshirt and of course mister wong!! he's soo funny!!

Posted by: Steve | July 29, 2006 03:06 AM

# 6

Plazes, anyone?

Posted by: Tim | July 30, 2006 06:40 PM

# 7

my top favorites are pageflakes.com and openbc. In your list i miss pageflakes.com :-)

Posted by: veit | August 1, 2006 01:44 AM

# 8

Well, talking about cutting-edge German design: I really miss www.zeec.de on your list. Another Flickr/Youtube Hybrid with a huge portion of mobile functions. They also have an international version at www.zeec.net for all the english-speaking folks around the world.

Posted by: Werner | August 3, 2006 03:20 PM

# 9

It's an excellent list. But one of the best in the near future will be: http://www.ehrensenf.de

Enjoy it.

Günter

Posted by: Günter Andersson | August 10, 2006 03:08 AM

# 10

www.dugg.de is very nice.
a social networking site with 2 million german users.

Posted by: Mike | August 11, 2006 05:40 AM

# 11

Yes, having a list of German Web 2.0 sites and not have plazes in it is really a fault, especially since it is one of the few using the mobile / location based market.

I prefer openbc over linkedin for example for the possibility if really using it as a contact management system - and not just for some email addresses. And sorry, so far Ehrensenf stays a Rocketboom copycat.

Posted by: Nicole Simon | August 11, 2006 03:32 PM

# 12

This is useful:
http://crueltobekind.org/

Günter

Posted by: Günter Andersson | August 12, 2006 11:17 AM

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