Time releases 50 best websites of 2011

What does a site encouraging people to upload personalised eight track playlists, mixtape style, have in common with one that donates ten grains of rice to the UN for every question you get correct on a multiple choice quiz? They’re all on Time Magazine’s 50 Best Websites of 2011.

The renowned magazine says the aim of the annual list is to honour “the scrappy newcomers and established players that make the Web so useful, entertaining and just plain indispensable”. Artistic, conceptual sites like Dear Photograph, therefore, can rub shoulders with an established gaming and tech site like The Escapist.

The sites are divided into broad categories including Sports, News and Info and Social Media. Time has run the list since 2005, adapting the broad categories a number of times since its inception.

Initial nominations for the list were made by Time Magazine’s editors, with the final 50 being decided by public vote. The list was then released with commentary by Time columnist and editor of tech site Technologizer, Harry McCracken.

Here is the list, organised by category:

Music and Video
8tracks
HBO GO
Howcast
My Damn Channel
Turntable.fm

Family and Kids
CafeMom
Dear Photograph
Poptropica
Proust
Wonderopolis

Sports
Bleacher Report
Grantland
Jayski’s Silly Season Site
Onion Sports Network
SB Nation

News and Info
Big Think
GetHuman
Instapaper
ScienceDaily
Techmeme

Financial and Productivity
DuckDuckGo
Evernote
Join.me
Kickstarter
LearnVest

Shopping and Travel
Airbnb
Gogobot
Hipmunk
Polyvore
Retrevo

Health and Fitness
CalorieKing
HealthGrades
MapMyRun
Summer Tomato
Zen Habits

Social Media
Google+
Klout
Pinterest
Quora
Storify

Games
The Escapist
Giant Bomb
OnLive
Touch Arcade
Retrocade

Education
Freerice
Khan Academy
Open Yale Courses
Smarthistory
Starfall