When I have a need, and go to find a web application to meet that need, why does it seem like I have to do VC style due diligence on all the companies in that space to make my final decision.

Simple answers:
1) I’m super obsessive compulsive about web apps
2) There are too many web apps
3) Theres no central useful review of all of them

To decide on what social book/reading site I wanted to use, I went through dozens of sites, analyzed different metrics, and wrote two posts (1, 2 ) to find the one I wanted. The worst part, is that I ended up doing all that work to decide on a webapp, only to get invited to GoodReads a few days later, which hadn’t even shown up on my radar. I am now using Good Reads because all my friends are, and it has most of the features i want.

There’s got to be a better way. Personally, I like to use a combination of del.ico.us, and ehub. Delicious tends to let you know how popular something is, while ehub is a more extensive directory that often contains nuggets of undiscovered apps.

Otherwise, you could go to the application directories:

http://simplespark.com/
http://www.feedmyapp.com/
http://wikkidapps.com/
http://www.go2web20.net/
http://o20db.com/
http://www.buzzshout.com/


These are a good start, but these directory sites are for industry geeks (i’m one of them!), many of them web2.0 focused. They still require work, and and pretty in depth understanding of the space. The only thing real world people (ones that won’t waste hours to get into this stuff) care about is, is which application one is the best, which one does exactly what i need it to do.