Giving Thanks for Free Web 2.0 Applications
November 25th, 2009With thanksgiving only a day away, I thought I would take some time to reflect on and give thanks for 10 free and useful Web 2.0 applications. These online tools have made my life easier and more pleasant and all for free.
10. Pandora Radio
Pandora creates customized internet radio stations that play music centered on artists or songs I like. I Just type in an artist or song and start listening. Pandora will play music that sounds similar to my entries. Adding more entries to a station creates more variety. If it plays something I don’t like, I can block it from the station. Pandora also allows for sharing stations with other users who I designate as friends. With the Christmas season starting, according to retailers, on Friday, there are a number of premade holiday music stations in different genres to build up your holiday cheer. If they hadn’t added commercials to their stations, it might rank higher on the thankfulness meter, but I understand the need to generate revenue.
Twitter is easy to get addicted to. I have found that the key to tweeting is to limit tweets to interesting ideas or articles that are worth sharing with colleagues. I recommend saving the daily play by play commentary for Facebook or a private twitter feed. I follow interesting people and colleagues in instructional technology. Twitter has been great for finding and sharing ideas. Twitter is placed at number 9 on this list because of the large number of “spam followers” I have to clean out every week.
8. WordPress
I suppose I should be thankful for the tool that I am using to publish this post. I have been impressed with WordPress’s professional look, easy to use back end and flexibility with handling different kinds of media. It is easy to add in plug-ins and there are tons of themes to choose from. The hardest is to keep the posts coming!
7. Drop.io
Coming in at number 7 is the underrated Drop.io. This is a great utility that stores larger media files for distribution with others. It creates RSS feeds, generates embed codes for media, and allows for password protected “drops” to lock down content to only those you trust. Drop.io also has chatting and presentation/conference calling features, though I have never used them beyond testing. This flexible application has nearly an unlimited number of uses.
6. Skype
Skype has been a wonderful tool for staying in contact with family and friends. The video call quality is quite good and the sound quality has improved, so long as you have a headset. As an online student, this has been a great way to collaborate with classmates on projects and bounce ideas off each other. It’s nice to be able to put a face with a voice.
5. Gmail
Gmail’s simple and elegant web interface is very easy to use. Tagging email is superior to placing them in category folders since many email messages need to be in multiple categories. Gmail has all kinds of options for setting up filters and rules to auto tag email as it comes in. The hard part is sticking with a common lexicon.
4. Delicious
This has been wonderful for sharing instructional technology articles with colleagues as well as for tagging for personal research or interest. As with gmail tags, the hard part is staying with a common lexicon. I have several tags that I have only used a couple of times that really should be tagged with a more general tag.
3. Google docs
Google docs back to basics online office suite is refreshing, even if it is lacking the advanced features of Microsoft Office. The document sharing and recently added folder sharing options are very useful for collaboration and sharing. Also the forms feature is a great way to collect survey data and track it in nearly real time.
2. Netvibes
This application has created a portal to the web with mini rss blocks of all of my favorite blogs, news sites, and even delicious feeds. This tool has allowed me to listen to technology related podcasts, read news articles, and update my facebook or twitter status all at the same time (a post coffee endeavor). This application allows me to be more productive at staying up with the latest trends and news in technology.
1. Dropbox
Dropbox has been a wonderful tool for synchronizing files between computers and backing up data. Adding files to Dropbox is as simple as dragging and dropping the file into the folder. The Dropbox application, a free download, automatically uploads it to the web. You can share your files publicly or privately and all computers that are connected to the same Dropbox account will automatically be synchronized with the latest files. It even keeps a revertible archive of the changes made to the account in case you need to go back. Say good bye to flash drives! This is truly an awesome, easy to use, free application and I am very thankful to have it.
