Our list of the new and/or undiscovered Web sites that have grabbed our attention this year. You'll see a large collection of Web applications and tech sites, excellent blogs, offbeat social networks, and, as always, a handful of addictive Flash games for those slow days at work.

Some of these sites are completely under the radar and get very little traffic. Others are hugely popular within a specific demographic. But all of them deserve to be in your bookmarks.

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The sites that keep a close watch on our government and the world around us.

 

Combine CNN and Wikipedia and you've got Guerrilla News Network. It's an independent news organization that strives to bring global issues to the masses through articles, headlines, videos, and blogs. Articles are completely original, written by GNN users or contributors. Become a member to create your own home page and blog, establish a network of friends, and participate in the forum. You can filter content on the site by countries, keyword, and/or topics.

 

By Jennifer L. DeLeo

Photojournalist and technological innovator Brian Storm's MediaStorm is an online collaboration of multimedia storytelling from around the globe, incorporating video, audio, photography, and personal essays. For instance, world-renowned photographer Martin Schoeller shoots portraits of the most recognized people of our time, including Angelina Jolie and Lance Armstrong. This beautifully crafted multimedia Web site is sponsored by WashingtonPost.com and welcomes online submissions, but it's a great site for browsing, too.

 

There's no denying the huge impact the Web will have on the 2008 presidential race. To respond to the new political trend and keep candidates on their technological toes, the Presidential Democracy Forum started the Tech President blog. The site keeps tabs on campaign sites, postings on YouTube, and how each candidates' friend pool on social-networking sites is growing (or not).

 

Tired of getting news only after it's been run through the regular corporate filters and media machines? Take things into your own hands with Topix. This news site has local sections for thousands of towns and communities, and includes news links, stories, and blog posts that are gathered and overseen by local editors. It's likely that your hometown already has its own section, and if it doesn't, you can start one yourself.

 

Before Zamzar, you had to download a utility-or two or three-to be able to convert file formats. But with Zamzar, you can convert anything-images, documents, and videos-and have it e-mailed to your inbox in four quick steps without downloading a thing. A new feature lets you convert files from URLs, which means you can save YouTube videos to your hard drive without breaking a sweat.

 

Zoho is throwing every application it can online to see what sticks. It's got the typical stuff (word processor, spreadsheet, and presentations) along with some distinctive items like the Zoho Creator database, a notebook, a Wiki, and a Web-based collaboration tool. Not all the modules are free (like the project manager and CRM tools), but all are exceptionally well done and kept fresh with new options and features-such as integration with your Facebook page.

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Put your money to good use or just get more of it, with these philanthropic, real-estate, and investment sites.

 

The scatologically named BullPoo is an online community for investors to gather, swap tips or stocks, and talk money. The site includes built-in stock-ticker features, solid blog content (by guys who don't mind blogging for a site called "BullPoo"), and even virtual brokerages to conduct your online trades. There's even a leaderboard displaying the net worth of the top ten users.

 

If you're reading this at work, maybe you're bored with your job, so why not search Indeed.com for something new? It spans job Web sites, newspapers, and company career pages by keyword and location to fit your needs. Or browse jobs alphabetically by state, category, company, or job title. Save your searches and have them delivered to your inbox or an RSS reader, and click on Salaries to see what you're really worth.

 

Want to sink your cash into something more rewarding than an Apple iPhone? Put that $600 to work helping those less fortunate with Kiva, the site that lets you easily make small loans to deserving entrepreneurs worldwide. You browse by projects, borrower journals, pictures, loan history, and so on. You might choose to finance a boutique in Kenya ($200), help an Ecuadorian shopkeeper diversify into toys ($600), or launch a firewood business in Uganda ($350). You can lend as much or as little of the total as you like, and Kiva takes care of tracking the loan and getting your money back. It'll amaze you just how far your money can go.

 

Just in case you didn't have enough reasons to hate your neighbors (you know, if the barking dogs and impromptu living-room soccer games weren't enough), Rentometer is there to let you know just how much your rent compares with the rest of the neighborhood. Just enter in your address-no personal information is saved, so no worries there-and how much you pay, and the site will let you know if you're paying more, less, or the average for your area, with a handy Google Map of logged rents, so you know just what doors to go knocking on to try to score that rent-controlled place of your dreams.

 

Whether you're looking to upgrade your current home, make a big cross-country move, or flip some undervalued property, Trulia has the sound real-estate advice and extensive home listings you need. After you search for a home, Trulia provides you with all the vital stats (or "snapshot") for your new neighborhood, including schools, local buying/selling trends, and purchasing advice from local real-estate agents.

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These are our favorite new sites in the exploding category of Web applications.

 

This free Web application helps you organize your thoughts into easily readable and colorful mind maps to print or post online. Bubbl.us lets you interact with your team to pool and sort out your thoughts in a clean, crisp way that leaves the usual conference-room mishmash and endless e-mail threads behind.

 

Eyejot combines elements of e-mail, voice mail, and video chat into a single streamlined solution. The site lets you quickly and easily record a video message and e-mail a link to it. Friends can click on the link at their leisure to view your message and reply via their own video message. The whole thing is easy, free, and much more personal than stuffy old e-mail.

 

If you're like most Web surfers, the majority of your Internet time is spent on a small handful of sites. Only2Clicks lets you set up a customized home page with instant access to these sites, along with previews of what's on their home pages. Yes, yes, we know that the Opera browser has this "speed-dial" feature built in, but for the huge majority of Web surfers who don't use Opera, Only2Clicks is a free and easy way to add this functionality to any browser.

 

Editing your photos just got easier, thanks to Picnik. Upload a photo or import online photos from flickr, Picasa, and others; then real-time online manipulation tools let you crop, sharpen, adjust exposure and color, and more. Add some effects, such as doodles or infrared (try the "gooify" feature for some true wackiness), and then share them with your friends. A new Firefox extension adds an "Edit in Picnik" option to the right-click menu and lets you take screen-captures and edit them in Picnik.

 

There's no question that wikis have revolutionized the way we consume information online. But for the most part, they've never really been particularly dynamic, either in terms of aesthetics and creation. Wetpaint makes the dream of good-looking, easy-to-create wikis a reality, and since it's a proper Web 2.0 site, you can bet dollars to donuts that it includes a social-networking component.

 

Is your PC behaving badly? Let the geeks at MajorGeeks.com handle the situation. The site has a collection of free and paid apps and utilities for your PC that have been tested to recover, repair, protect, back up . . . the list goes on and on. Sort files by name, date, license, OS, or popularity.

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These are the sites that cover the Web 2.0 revolution.

 

AppScout
www.appscout.com
By Kyle Monson
This might be viewed as self-serving, but our AppScout blog is a great place to find software tips and tricks, cool or useful Web sites and apps, and the latest news from the world of Web technology. The blog is written mainly by PC Mag editors and analysts, and we give readers exclusive access to our regular vendor meetings, trade shows, and interviews.

 

Download Squad is basically Engadget for software and Web apps, and it's owned by the same company, Weblogs Inc. The blog traffics in rumors and news announcements, posts frequently, and has fun content like "Today's Time Waster"-ways for bored cubicle-dwellers to entertain themselves online.

 

We're still trying to figure out how she does it, but somehow Emily Chang manages to get wind of every Web 2.0 app long before the rest of the blogging world does. Her synopses are short and sweet, which is just fine, given the frequency with which she updates her page. eHub has been doing a bit of branching out recently, too, adding interviews, job listings, news, and events.

 

If you're searching for in-depth, hands-on reviews of the latest Web apps, keep looking. MakeUseOf.com's real strength lies in its quick but surprisingly comprehensive roundups of apps and sites in a given space. If you're looking to discover the best iPhone apps, Firefox extensions, or accounting sites, MakeUseOf can point you in the right direction.

 

Sick of hearing and reading about the social-networking revolution? Then steer clear of Mashable, a blog devoted to covering MySpace, Facebook, and their ilk. Mashable reports on the exploding world of social-networking apps and features. It's a top-notch news resource for Web 2.0 developers and even MySpace users who want to pimp their page with the latest plug-ins.

 

Uncov is kind of the bizarro TechCrunch. It mercilessly reviews start-ups, harshes on everything Web 2.0, and passes along (or makes up) juicy Silicon Valley rumors. The blog posts are written by potty-mouthed software nerds who are able to dig much deeper into Web apps than your typical tech blog does, exposing the sloppy programming and faulty business models that so much of the Web is built on.

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