Proof That Web 2.0 Doesn’t Have To Be So Serious

Most Web 2.0 applications and sites try hard to serve a real purpose, to be useful (with varying degrees of success). That's all well and good, but that means we overlook a slew of them that have the main purpose of being fun, or fulfilling a trivial task to help us have fun or do something silly offline. Some of these one hit wonders are actually my favorite ways to kill a little time on line while I try to get past writer's block or wait for a phone interview to start.

Drinkstr and Grubstr are two that recently popped to the top of my list. What could be better than two interlinked Web 2.0 sites invented solely to help me do two of my favorite things: eating and drinking? Drinkstr takes the guesswork out of happy hour, and Grubstr helps you decode what you're having for lunch and who with in this age of option overload.

The fact that both start off as a complete blank slate is a problem, especially for someone who may not be web savvy enough to get that you are in charge of creating your own user group and set of restaurants and bars. Both sites are bare bones, single function sites that offer too few bells and whistles to reach greatness. That aside, if you want a self created resource for local bars and restaurants to plan meet ups with friends, both serve that purpose well.

Eons better than the very basic, simplistic Web 2.0 world of Drinkstr and Grubstr is a new Web 2.0 television concept, PrimeTimeRewindTV. This genius site puts all of the most recent television episodes on prime time on the surface of an interactive 3D cube. You can move the cube around with your mouse or your arrow keys, then click on any show to view the most recently aired episode. I got lost in this one for a while today while “researching” this article.

Of course there are many Web 2.0 games out there developed strictly to entertain while bringing people together online. There are really too many to list them all but you might enjoy a few I've come across in the last 30 days or so. what better way to connect online than through a few fun games?

With Travian, you play a game in your browser in real time with other people online. Everyone starts off with their own “village”. You can band together with other web users to build coalitions or wage wars. You can conquer other villages or work together peacefully. The nice thing about Travian is how fast it is to learn and how easy it is to meet people and grow your village into a city.

This brings us to the very weird and wacky Pictogame. Designed for the Myspace set, Pictogame lets you take any picture on your PC and turn it into a game. The Pictogame engine turns your photo based game into a widget you can share on your blog, web site, MySpace page and more. It's a quick way to make sharing pictures with your friends a little more fun and lot more strange.

Last, but not least, we have CrowdChess. In CrowdChess users are randomly selected to form teams on either the white or black side of a chess board. the teams then get together to play chess by making group decisions on moves. CrowdChess claims to be an experiment on crowd wisdom. Whatever its goal, its fun to play, and a great way to meet new friends online.

What simple, fun Web 2.0 apps do you turn to when all you want to do is have a good time or kill an hour or two?