This Week in Web Apps

This week has been pretty busy for both bigger and smaller companies in the online universe. Google trying the hardest among the lot, working towards making internet a better place as always (all the while collecting & mining data). Bit.ly pulled one more rabbit out of their hat, Mozilla showcased its financial might and Meebo jumped on the check-in bandwagon.

At the end of a week, a few times per month, we’ll bring you some of the best web app news and updates. App developers, this is a great time to familiarize yourselves with our contact form to submit your news or tips.

Read on after the break for some of this weeks best web app news and updates.

20 Things I Learned

This month marks the twentieth anniversary of Tim Berners-Lee publishing a proposal about the World Wide Web. Imagine where things stand today! Pretty amazing isn’t it! Still a lot of us have a bunch of question as to how browsers and the web actually work? What is HTML5—or HTML for that matter? What do terms like “cookies” or “cloud computing” even mean? More practically, how can we keep ourselves safe from security threats like viruses when we’re online?

Google has collaborated with Christoph Niemann and have produced a fantastic web app that educates newbies on all things internet.

Bit.ly Bundles

For a company that focuses on making URLs short, Bit.ly always has bigger goals. If they did not get a kudos for running a pseudo domain name registry, they deserve it alteast now with their recent announcement. Now you can bundle up all your tiny URL links into one tiny little URL. Every link you add to a bundle will include a rich media preview, a bit.ly click count, and can be customized with a title and description. Try it out !

Google Product Search

The holidays are coming and so is the gifting season! Every year retailers start the holiday shopping season earlier and earlier and it’s a real mess when trying to find the best bargain out there. To help all the shopaholics, Google has just revamped its Product Search feature. They’ve partnered with 70 large retailers and now if you’re looking online to find that new gadget you’ve been wanting, you can click on the “nearby stores” link to see where it’s in stock nearby.

Also, when you search for a category of products, the new popular products feature helps you get started by showing you the products from the same category that other people are viewing online. As long as they don’t show the name and addresses of people along with results, I am happy!

Meebo Check Ins

These days, everybody wants to be in the check-in game. Poor Foursquare! Now Meebo has gone one step further and allows you to check into the websites you visit. Find a good story? Link to the page. Add a comment. Click Check in.

When you check in to a site, it is added to your Meebo Profile – that’s right: Meebo users can now have their own profile pages that highlight their favorite sites. Link your Facebook or Twitter accounts to keep your friends up to date on your Meebo activity.

Scribd Stats

Scribd is the YouTube for documents. Being an awesome web app is never enough for them and they constantly keep improving their product. Their latest new feature allows you to pull comprehensive statistics on your documents shared in Scribd ala. Google Analytics.

From your “My Stats” page you have access to the dashboard of information, including which of your docs people are reading and sharing most, how people are finding them, which docs they’re spending the most time on and much more.

The State of Mozilla

Being an ardent fan of Firefox, I’ve been super pissed at them for pushing back Firefox 4 into 2011. Even though Google Chrome is eating into Mozilla’s market-share, things are going very well for them on the financial front, which is evident from the State of Mozilla report. For 2009, Mozilla reported revenues of $104 million, up 34% from 2008. That’s a really cool number considering the fact that all their products are free. They do this once they’ve filed their audited financial statements for the previous year, so these numbers are for 2009. Go Mozilla!

Share Your Thoughts!

What news from the app universe grabbed your attention in the past few days? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments section. Thanks!