Family of Champions

50 Coolest Websites by Time Magazine

How do we select our finalists? We evaluate hundreds of candidates—some suggested by readers, colleagues and friends, others discovered during countless hours of surfing. Many of this year's choices are shining examples of Web 2.0: next-generation sites offering dynamic new ways to inform and entertain, sites with cutting-edge tools to create, consume, share or discuss all manners of media, from blog posts to video clips. Think we missed one? Send us your thoughts and we'll post a selection of your comments online. There's always next year. By MARYANNE MURRAY BUECHNER

ENTERTAINMENT, ARTS & MEDIA
A variety of amusements, from classic rock to famous photography, collage art to custom radio, plus our favorite video web logs
Drawn!
Jumpcut
Sundance Splinks
Wolfgang's Vault
Photo Muse
Podcast Pickle
Pandora
The 9
YouTube

SHOPPING, LIFESTYLES & HOBBIES
Yummy food, Hollywood fashion and helping hands for those do-it-yourself projects
Phone Scoop
Delicious Days
Not Martha
Shop Intuition
Kids-In-Mind
Mighty Goods
Zunafish

NEWS & INFORMATION
The Web's best war correspondent, a snarky sports blog, the pioneers of "social news" more
The Morning News
Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone
Charity Navigator
Footnoted
Tailrank
Deadspin
Digg
The Human Clock

STAYING CONNECTED
A humming social network, community sing-along, instant-messaging hub, mobile-launched pub-crawls and numbers-crunching by committee
MySpace
Google Spreadsheets
SingShot
Meebo
Dodgeball

TIME WASTERS
Juicy celebrity gossip, mindless computer games and other guilty pleasures
TMZ
Shockwave
Yu-Gi-Oh Groove
Cute Overload
Jackson Pollock by Miltos Manetas
Number Logic

TRAVEL & REAL ESTATE
An airfare predictor and subway guide, restaurant reviews and car sharing
Zipcar
Farecast
Kayak
Zillow
HopStop
CentralPark
Yelp

WEB SEARCH & SERVICES
Ordering take-out, finding phone numbers and a slew of alternative search engines
Accoona
Kosmix
Snap
Pixsy
Argali White & Yellow
Blurb
Seamless Web
McAfee SiteAdvisor
BACK TO TOP PRINT-->E-MAIL

25 Sites We Can't Live Without

25 Sites We Can't Live Without
Here we honor some '50 Coolest' finalists from years past, sites that continue to impress us with new content and features and deserve a spot on anyone's must-click listBy MARYANNE MURRAY BUECHNER

Posted Thursday, Aug. 03, 2006

1. Amazon.comIt rules e-tail, with 34 different product categories (including groceries; new and used cars could be next) yet stays true to its bookstore roots, with nifty features like Search Inside the Book, and the new AmazonConnect, which links you to blog posts from your favorite authors from the home page
2. Apple Movie TrailersComing attractions for movie buffs and reason enough to finally get that broadband connection
3. BloggerThe place to go to create your own blog; tools are powerful and easy to use, and it's free
4. CraigslistThis wildly popular portal of classified ads serving more than 300 cities in the U.S. and across the globe recently expanded its real estate listings, and helps power HousingMaps a mash-up that locates properties for sale using Google Maps. (Craigslist charges fees to real estate brokers in New York and for job ads in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, but is otherwise free.)
5. Drudge ReportMatt Drudge, newsbreaker, got more than 3.5 billion hits in the past year
6. EbayThe auction powerhouse keeps expanding its repertoire, allowing users to write blogs and create wikis (collaborative info-banks), and to "Skype" each other about individual items up for bid (i.e. use the Internet telephony service to place voice calls)
7. ESPNBest all-around sports site, with sports news, sports videos, sports columns and sports data galore. Honorable mention goes to MLB.com, which lets you watch baseball games that aren't broadcast in your local TV market. The service's success inspired CBS Sports to team up with NCAA to offer March Madness on Demand which drew 5 million viewers earlier this year
8. Factcheck.orgPicks apart speeches, press releases, TV ads and other public statements by politicians of all stripes to set the record straight
9. FlickrThis public showroom for personal pics is one of the fastest-growing social networks on the Web, and now it has a blog
10. GoogleWhat started as the Web's best search engine has become a jack-of-all-trades, offering all sorts of free applications, from Spreadsheets and Calendar to Picasa (for digital photos) and Gmail. There's Google Scholar, which lets you search for academic papers on any topic, and Google Finance (nice charts!); Google Maps has inspired countless "mash-ups" including weatherbonk.com. Register for a free account and you can personalize your home page too. Click here, for a menu of features and services that have officially launched; go to Google Labs for the new stuff that's still in beta (such as Spreadsheets). The unaffiliated (but lovingly devoted) Googletutor.com has helpful tips and advice for making the most of all things Google. Read more about some of Google's latest-greatest features in the TIME archives.
11. HowStuffWorksEasy-breezy explanations of how things work, from money laundering to hybrid cars, game consoles to the human kidneys
12. The Internet Movie DatabaseEncyclopedia of entertainment that covers some 800,000 films, television shows and video game titles. Users help keep the Internet Movie Database current, submitting 16 million data bits in 2005 alone
13. LifehackerComputer-tech tips and tricks to help you save time, and keep you sane; sister-blog Gizmodo gives up all the latest gadget news. Too mainstream for you? Best to head over to our favorite geek-convention,Slashdot.org
14. The Museum of Modern ArtNow available: MoMA Audio, a selection of museum tours as downloadable podcasts. Wear your own earbuds as you walk through the special exhibitions or the permanent collection; separate audio tours are available for kids and for the visually impaired.
15. NetflixMore than 60,000 DVD titles available to rent, from classics to art-house flicks to major studio releases. Digital delivery is scheduled to start early next year, but don't expect those red mailers to be phased out anytime soon
16. National Public RadioNot to miss: NPR podcasts, NPR music, NPR This I Believe, NPR Stories
17. The OnionLong before The Daily Show, long before Stephen Colbert, there was The Onion, and it's still hilarious, and now you don't need a subscription to read the fake news archives. Podcasts are also now available
18. Rotten TomatoesGathers movie reviews from far and wide, and reports box office and other stats; flicks receive a critical average on the 100-point "tomatometer." Movies.com also gets a nod for streaming episodes of "Statler & Waldorf: From the Balcony," an Ebert & Roeper spoof starring those lovable muppet-curmudgeons
19. ShopzillaNew comparison shopping sites keep popping up (Become.com isn't bad) but nothing beats Shopzilla's search tools and merchant ratings
20. TechnoratiBlog finder that keeps getting better while the blogosphere gets bigger. Searches are faster and more accurate, and now you can personalize the home page; a new Discover section provides a round-up of top posts by topic. Newcomer Sphere is also worth a look.
21. Television Without PityBitingly funny TV show recaps
22. The Smoking GunContinues to document interesting news (sample headline: "Six Skulls Found in Strippers Home") and get the occasional big scoop, like outing writer James Frey
23. WikipediaA real Web wonder: this massive, collaborative online encyclopedia is written, edited, and maintained primarily by volunteers; some 1.3 million articles in English, and millions more in 228 other languages
24. Yahoo!Arguably Google's toughest competition for top Web property. Check out the new My Web 2.0 service, which incorporates the social bookmarking activities of the recently-acquired del.icio.us (you get to see where other people are surfing, and share your own favorite links). Maps.yahoo.com/traffic offers a visual guide to gridlock situations on major roads in 20 metropolitan areas; Yahoo Photos offers new ways to share images (more advanced search features, tagging and other tools); and the new Yahoo Tech page cherry-picks from CNET's playbook. Earlier this summer, Yahoo partner site fifaworldcup.yahoo.com scored with video highlights and a live MatchCast
25. Zappos.comSimply the best place to shop for shoes online, with stellar customer service and free shipping all the time

Blue Stephen

Naked Fountain

AFP/DDP - Sun Aug 6, 4:42 PM ET Hundreds of naked volunteers pose nude for an installation of US photographer Spencer Tunick, at the Ehrenhof museum complex in Duesseldorf, western Germany, on the building's roof is seen the sculpture "Aurora" by German artist Arno Breker. Tunick is known for his photographs that feature large numbers of nude people posed in artistic formations, often situated in urban locations.(AFP/DDP/Volker Hartmann)