iA, a strategic design agency based in Tokyo, released the web trend map for 2008. Around 300 of the most influential and successful web sites and services were pinned down to the greater Tokyo-area train map.

This year, the map (which is available as a 3D poster as well) not only uses Snap Shots to display previews of the home pages of the different sites, but it also lists Snap Shots among the successful and influential ones. Next to Snap Shots, on the “Technology Line” (green), you can find MyBlogLog, WordPress, Technorati, Reddit, Blogger, Feedburner, Drupal, Opera, Adobe, Flash, PDF, MySQL, IBM, Linux, Python, Sony and others.

This is a very nice acknowledgement to the Snap Shots service, and a great implementation using Snap Shots.

The reception was the end of a long day which started early in the morning in a breakfast/panel with a few Israelis who work in US media companies: Nimrod Lev, Shaul Olmert, Roy Bahat, Tal Pink, Sam Gonen, Itzik Ben Bassat, Ofer Shaked and myself. Later on, the delegation hopped on busses and went to visit MTV, Sony and other media companies. The format of all the meetings was very similar to speed dating – each company had two minutes to pitch their product to a group of executives, and then companies and executives could spend more time together in one on one meetings.

Personally I find three companies to be very interesting and with great potential: Prime Sense (technology/device that can see, track and react to user movements outside the computer), Musestorm (widget creation, syndication & distribution) and InnerActive (advertising in mobile gaming – check out Adidas ads inside the Fifa game).

I look forward to meeting the participants of the 2008 delegation which I am sure will be even more successful.