All new Go2web20 - Faster, Friendlier, Richer!

This post was written by Eyal Shahar Go2web20 Co-Founder, which is a user experience specialist the site couldn't exist without.

For the past two years, Go2web20 has been one of the biggest web2.0 directories out there. We built this application to enable people to stay up to date with all the new & hot services that are born daily into the web. In many cases, Go2web20 has been the first to report the existence of a new application. Today, Go2web20 launching a new version, reconstructed from the ground.

Some background for newbiez

Go2web20 is an index of web applications and services. The index was founded on mid 2006 by Orli Yakuel and Eyal Shahar.
The site was built as a flash-based catalog, which is still available at http://www.go2web20.net. Today, prior to relaunch, it indexes around 3,000 web applications from various categories, and draws thousands of daily visitors.

This upgrade is not about minor fixes, but a change of approach.

So what's new?

Perfomance!
The original site was never planned to get so big. It wasn't scalable, and we know it turned to be awfully slow and heavy. So this was our primary goal - make it fast! The new site is based on HTML+Ajax, and loads data in pieces as necessary, unlike the previous version, which loaded the entire data when initiated.

Search
Go2web20 is about getting updated for many users, but it's also about research. So we built up a rich search mechanism:

* Search using free text - also searched the applications description and tags, not just their titles.
* Combine tags and free text in search
* Search suggestions (by tags) as you type
* Also suggest applications by name for quick access.
* Use the tags bar to filter your results deeper and deeper
* Unique URL for search results - helps you get updated on a specific subject.
* Browser search add-on.

Rich info on applications
There's a lot to say about each application on the index besides the short description and tags we provide. So we built a unique page for each application and used some APIs and partnerships to provide you with this data:

* Screenshot
* Blog posts about this application
* Videos and screencasts
* Twits
* Biz info from CrunchBase
* Delicious as a popularity rank
* User comments and rating

Main page and search results
1. Text-search with suggestion for tags and for quick access to applications.
2. Switch between the classic go2web20 gallery mode and a list mode that shows description and metadata.
3. Use the next-back to flip pages, or the pagination at the top
4. Use tags filtering to get more accurate results. Easily add/remove tags to navigate your way through the directory.
5. Get the full list of tags, sorted alphabetically or by popularity.
6. Many options to get updated on new results
7. Install the Go2web20 open-search to your browser
8. The classic Flash based go2web20 is still accessible for now.

Application page
1. Added screenshot of the application
2. Recent blog posts related to the application
3. Videos and screencasts related to the application
4. The application profile on Crunchbase
5. Comments and ratings
6. Delicious as a popularity rank
7. Recent twits mentioning the application name
8. Quick sharing links

Partnerships

As the gate to web 2.0 applications, we believe in mash-ups and cooperation. We used some open APIs and some direct partnership to enhance our site.
Here are some examples of what we used:

* Google Friend Connect for user comments & ratings and members page
* ShrinkTheWeb for screenshots
* Notify.me for email and SMS updates
* Conduit for the web 2.0 toolbar
* Google for blogs info
* Youtube for application videos
* Twitter search for relevant tweets

We welcome any cooperation suggestion that will enrich the user experience on Go2web20. Submit your thoughts to info@go2web20.net.

Advertisers
We currently offer static advertising that run on front page and all search results, on the right end column. Please contact advertise@go2web20.net for price offers.