It’s that time of year again…

In between — or to go along with — holiday shopping, we’re starting to see 2009’s “top” products, services, applications, etc. being touted.

Yesterday, ReadWriteWeb listed their top mobile web apps and have followed up today with their list of the top 10 consumer web apps of the year.

With regard to the consumer apps, they note that there are hundreds of new ones to choose from but “occasionally, we come across a service that stands out from the pack because it offers a novel solution, disrupts the way incumbent market leaders do business or changes the way we experience the Web.”  Not all the apps are newly launched, but reached a mainstream audience this year.

The mobile web apps heavily feature those for the iPhone as one might expect, but there is a mix of others.

Briefly, the mobile group includes:  Facebook 3.0 (iPhone), Tweetie 2 (iPhone), Twidroid – see image – (Android), Foursquare (Cross-platform), Google Voice, (Blackberry, Android), Spotify (Cross-Platform), Google Maps Navigation (Android), Layer (iPhone, Android), and a couple more.  See the article for details.

Among the top consumer apps are 2 search engines, Bing and WolframAlpha.  A couple of my favorites are included: light blogging site Posterous (here’s an example) and Tweetdeck, which I’ve recently posted about.  Of course, RWW didn’t leave off huge favorites like Twitter and Facebook.  See the article for more apps and information.

Video uploads for all Flickr users
Flickr now lets all users, whether they ride for free or pay $25/year (Pro accounts), upload brief video clips.  Those with Pro accounts can upload high-definition videos, but video length is capped at 90 seconds for everyone.  Flickr videos can be geo-tagged to indicate location.

Approximately 3 million pictures and videos are uploaded daily to the site which is visited monthly by 73 million people worldwide.

New iPhone app for Amazon’s Kindle
iPhone has introduced the Amazon Kindle iPhone application which can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store.  If you are out and about with some time on your hands and want to keep your book — or book collection — with you on a small device, this app will make you happy.

If you don’t own a Kindle, you will need to buy ebooks from Amazon through a web browser on your computer or iPhone, says Mathew Miller at ZDnet.   Check out the post for his video showing ebooks on both Kindle and iPhone.

FCC Chief nominee is Net neutrality backer
President Obama has nominated Julius Genachowski as the nation’s top telecommunications regulator, picking a campaign adviser who has divided his career between Washington, D.C., political jobs and working as an Internet executive.

Genachowski is likely to continue the Democratic push for more Net neutrality regulations, which are opposed by some conservatives and telecommunications providers.  He was a top Obama technology adviser and aided in crafting a technology platform that supported Net neutrality rules. [via Slashdot]

Read/WriteWeb has been doing a series of top 10 products and has just posted their choice of the top 10 products for the mobile web.

The iPhone really gave the movement impetus when it was introduced in 2007, with a plethora of apps being developed for it this year and appearing prominently on the list.

iPhone apps are proprietary, however, in contrast to the recently introduced Android open source project and the development of the first phone powered by the Android OS, the T-Mobile G1.

Among the top products for mobile are some you might have anticipated, such as Twitter and Google Maps for your phone (which now includes Street View), as well as some apps for listening to music on your phone — and more!

Apple introduced its new 3G iPhone which will go on sale July 11.  TechCrunch has the story and a video of the announcement.  

The new iPhone will run on AT&T’s high-speed 3G network, will give you an 8 gigabyte device with GPS, relatively long battery life, and all for only $199 (with a 2-year contract), as compared to the first iteration of iPhones which sell for $399.

Steve Jobs, making the announcement, said that 3G speed approaches that of WiFi, making web and email access more desirable.  In combination with the GPS chip, the increased speed makes many new location-aware applications possible.

Google Spreadsheets gadgets
I just decided to use Google Spreadsheets for the first time so I was interested to hear about some new features and improvements, including autocompletes, email notification among collaborators, and a directory of gadgets that can be added.

To add a gadget, click on the “Insert” dropdown and select “Gadget,”  Each gadget can be embedded into web pages or added to iGoogle,

Smartphones will have Flash and Reader
Microsoft will license Adobe Systems’ Flash Lite and Reader LE software for use in future versions of Windows Mobile-based phones the companies announced earlier this week.

Budget-conscious tech gadgets
PC Magazine recommends some favorite “cheapskate” gadgets — fun for $200 or less.  They range from Apple’s wireless keyboard and mouse to a Plantronics Bluetooth handset.

Let’s start with some specs for the new MacBook Air:  1.6GHz or 1.8GHz of Intel’s Core 2 Duo, with 2GB of soldered RAM, 802.11a/b/g/n (802.11n is Draft 2.0), Bluetooth, a 13.3-inch LED-backlit screen, and a choice between a standard 80GB ATA hard drive or a 64GB solid-state flash drive.  There is no optical drive, no FireWire ports, only one USB port, and a micro-DVI port.  It weighs 3 pounds, and fits in a manilla envelope. 

If you are seriously considering a purchase, check out this very detailed review by Jacqui Cheng at Ars Technica, who found “the size and weight to be nothing less than absolutely delightful.”

But the Air “slows to a halfway-unusable crawl anytime there’s a large amount of disk activity—running a browser that reads and writes a lot to the drive (*cough* Firefox), transferring files over the network in the background, anything.”  She didn’t regret the absence of an optical drive, but declared battery life and time to recharge the Air’s worst feature.

“Think of it [the Air] as an iPod touch Extreme with a built-in keyboard.  It is not meant to be your only or main computer—rather, it’s a secondary (or even tertiary) computer.”

Apple had plenty of announcements at Macworld Expo, with the MacBook Air super-thin laptop attracting the most attention.  Weighing three pounds and less than two-tenths of an inch at its slimmest, the “thinnest notebook in the world” carries a heafty opening price of $1,799. 

Although critics were quick to notice some features lacking, industry analyst Michael Gartenberg named it “the object of desire for 2008.”

The MacBook Air lacks a CD/DVD drive and a removable battery, but packs a 13.3″ LED-backlit widescreen display.  The keyboard is full-sized and backlit and there is a built-in iSight video camera.  Software includes iLife ‘08 with iPhoto and iMovie and it is preinstalled with Leopard OS.  The new laptop will start shipping within two weeks and will be available at Apple Stores.

The expected movie rental service through the Apple iTunes store, changes to Apple TV, and a device called “Time Capsule” were also announced.  See more details at the Seattle P-I.