Designing a font is one of the few things on my "bucket list" (designing a Linux desktop environment being another one). But it being quite the undertaking, I end up relying upon fonts I find while browsing the web (I keep a list of the best-looking/most useful ones).
Typekit and Google Web Fonts really changed the state of font usage in web design. We're not restricted anymore by a fixed amount of fonts, nor have to rely upon images or weird technologies (remember Cufon?) to display custom fonts. It has its drawbacks (loading time, unreadable thin characters...), but it's overall a great step forward in software-less web design and graphical variety (which in turn improves visual identity).