The web is littered with failure, and that's part of what makes it so fun. Here's a countdown of what I consider to be the top 5 web #fails of the year.

*If you tell me using the word fail is a fail, I am prepared to counter-fail.

5. FriendFeed

At the first TechCrunch CrunchUp, FriendFeed and Bret Taylor were clearly viewed by the TechCrunch panel as something close to The Golden Ones of social media UI. And rightly so. With a huge track record of success (all 4 FriendFeed founders came from Google: Taylor and Jim Norris developed Google Maps, Paul Buchheit and Sanjeev Singh developed Gmail), this brilliant 4some was poised to give Facebook and Twitter some fierce competition.

A rabid pool of geek devotees, most notably Robert Scoble (who was also their most vocal advocate), helped the FriendFeed cause enormously. When Facebook changed their UI to incorporate a more FriendFeed-like look and feel, they seemed threatened by the clean design, speed, and interwoven content aggregations and comment groupings that are FriendFeed's hallmarks and strengths.

Unfortunately, FriendFeed was bought by Facebook, so the big #FAIL was that we never got to see little David really go at it with the two Goliath's of the social scene.

Hey, for $47.5M in cash and Facebook stock, can you really blame them? No.

4. Bacardi Gets Ugly

In mid 2009, Bacardi launched website in English and Hebrew (+ a Hebrew Facebook app), based on their 'Get an Ugly Girlfriend' advertising campaign. Not the best move for a big brand. People were mad, Bacardi shut everything down and apologized.

3. Republican Party URL Shorteners

Um. So. The Republican National Committee decides to create a URL shortener, so that you can do what? Of course, make web links short and conservative. Makes sense so far. However, the URL shortener creates a banner overlay across the top and bottom of the web page that's had its URL shortened. You've seen this before. But there were many people who couldn't resist branding questionable or humorous content with the good old GOP name and colors.

The #FAIL is taking an already confused brand identity and setting it up to be mocked by venturing into cyberspace waters you don't belong in.

2. ArthurKade.com

I mean seriously, have you seen this site? The fact that this guy got so much web attention this year represents a failure of American culture and values.

1. Google Wave

Whether on cleverly conceived or by chance, Google did an amazing job promoting Google Wave. Every true silicon-hearted geek I knew was salivating and clamoring for a Wave invite.

The aftermath? Crickets chirping. Don't get me wrong. Wave is a hugely powerful platform and I look forward to using it more. It's pretty amazing for small group (<20 people) collaborations. But the buzz on this fell to silence when new users were greeted by slightly buggy functionality and a 'Hey, you people figure it out for yourself' user experience. Like opening a box to find a brand new bike in an unassembled state. You can get it going and have fun, but some people will simply never put it together without some direction.

For a company that usually does such a stellar job with consistency and usefulness in their communications, this was a #FAIL. Wave will live on, but it will probably be adopted by the masses at a rate similar to RSS readers and not that of instant messaging.