The Best of the Web 2009

Overwhelmed by the stream of new, powerful sites constantly emerging to suit every taste? Time picks 50 you should explore, if you haven’t already:

Etsy: “The long-haired, Birkenstocked love child of Amazon and eBay,” and the place to go online for handmade crafts, from housewares to clothing.
Hulu: The television industry’s answer to the music industry’s pirating troubles. It gives the people what they want, at the price they want—free.
Propertyshark.com: For prospective homebuyers who want to know what the agent won’t tell them. The site provides “price history, comparables, tax-roll information, flood and fire maps, and more.”
Flickr: Figured out an ingenious way to sort photos: “collaborative tagging.” With everybody tagging everybody else’s pics, they get sorted organically.
Academic Earth: Lets you go to college without paying tuition by watching lectures from schools all over.