TechCrunch on Top 15

Of Mike Arrington's top 15 companies/services he couldn't live without, two are former clients: NewsGator and 1-800-FREE411.

It's interesting that WordPress is on the list, an app I still haven't really played with although I have a sense of its character and appeal vis a vis the others. The thought of exporting all my data from one platform to the other is daunting. No, more than daunting.

I keep trying to get into flickr and YouTube, but I think I'm just the wrong demographic - the Silicon Valley hype and community pressure doesn't help - in fact, in some ways, it pushes me in the opposite direction. It's just not the way I think or work nor do they give me "what I want." At the end of the day, its about solving a problem more fluidly than all the others AND creating an experience you can't forget.

Pandora and Skype finally did that for me in 2006. I use both of them almost daily and they are less about ease-of-use and more about a pleasurable experience, although both took only moments to set up and get started.