a blog by Hiro Maeda

Groupon – Collective buying of local goods and service. Many of my friends are addicted to this service.

Posterous – I think it is the best blogging platform. A single email will post EVERYWHERE!

Smule – I was addicted to I Am T-Pain and Ocarina. Can’t wait for their next app!

Foursquare – I personally like Gowalla more in terms of ease of use and interface, but all my friends are on Foursquare.

Spotify – Simple and beautiful music player on the cloud.

DropBox – The iPhone app they released this year just kicked so much ass. DropBox is something I use everyday, and it is now one of those apps that I can’t live without.

Twilio – Twilio’s API enables developers to integrate phone services into web apps. Their API is so simple that I don’t even think you need to know how to program.

SlideShare – How else would you share power points slides and PDFs on the web?

grou.ps – Never used it, but it seems superior to Ning.

SimpleGeo – Geo location apps are going to boom in 2010. I’m sure most of the applications going to be released next year will be using SimpleGeo.

Square – Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey’s, new mobile platform service. I think it is neat and will have a substantial amount of users in 2010. However, I think RFID payments like Edy in Japan is going to be the future of mobile payment.

Tonchidot – a Japanese startup that developed Sekai Camera, an augmented reality application. Go Japan!

WePay – I think this is a great solution for group payments! Back in the days when I used to be in a fraternity, we had so much trouble collecting money! I wish we had something like this.

Blippy – A startup that allows you to share your credit card purchases online. It sound like a ridiculous service, so I’m going to bet they will kicks ass.

Yammer – A twitter-like communication tool for companies and organizations. Too bad they don’t support Japanese yet.

There are a lot more startups I believe will do well next year, but I’m going to keep them a secret

Happy Holidays!