BtoB Magazine recently listed its 2007 list of best B-to-B web sites.

Here's the list of winners (in alphabetical order):

Cintas
Dell - SMB
Deloitte
GE
HP - Support & Drivers
National Semiconductor
Staples
Veritas
VMware
Wells Fargo

It's hard to comment on whether these sites represent the 'best of the best' as I'm not familiar enough with all the sites or the industries they serve.

However, they seem like a pretty mixed bag — certainly from an aesthetic standpoint. For example, does the Veritas web site really deserve to be in a 10-best list like this? Visuals aside, on arriving at the home page I have no clear idea as to the purpose of the site.

Kudos to National Semiconductor for creating a site that only an engineer could love, and to Staples for putting their users first by placing a veritable link directory at the top of their home page. I can only imagine what the marketing folks must have said — "But, it's so boring!"

The article overview page has some good quotes, such as this one on the use of Web 2.0 in business-to-business web sites:

We hear a lot about RSS, and podcasts and community-type features. There's a lot of hype around these features, so designers rush to put them on a site without taking the time to see if these are the best ways to present content.

So true. But just try that line of reasoning with your internal stakeholders and see where it gets you…