Must Know Web2 Apps

Web 2 ... huh ??

2009-08-11T20:28:00.009+05:30

After craving long to setup a blog , here I am with my first one. I've written about some of the most fruitful and must know web 2.0 services .Before proceeding , let us first briefly know what web 2.0 exactly is . One can find profuse definitions as per different people's understandings . I believe that web 2.0 is

" Web as a platform "

In web 2.0 , the internet is less a source of information and more a platform for information sharing. The best paradigm can be the Wikipedia . While the Britanica encyclopedia acts as a source of information , Wikipedia acts as a platform,letting the users to actively post , update and edit articles ; thus serving the purpose of web 2.0 browsing .
Check out the video below for better understanding.

Below are such web 2.0 services with straight and crisp descriptions ,handy direct -to -site links and a screenshot. I've categorized the applications in a wide range of groups for you to easily pick up the desired info. I'll constantly upgrade the blog with more such looming web2.0 applications . So stay tuned to the blog to be revised on the vital web techs .

Mashup Editors

2009-08-11T20:26:00.002+05:30

Mashup is a kind of application that takes information from two or more open APIs and data source from many places on web ,to mix it together and form a single multi-functional application . Examples of mashups can be emessanger and meebo of which i've written in earlier posts. Such mashups can be created using mashup editors. In this post i've listed the top three online mashup editors.

Google mashup editor is a easy simple way to develop a web application or mashups using Google services like Google Earth , Google Maps , Google Base , etc. In a few lines of familiar code (like XML ,Jscript ,HTML , CSS) and one click of button, your mashup can be published to the world .This service also allows to integrate your feeds and manipulate them in one place.It also allows you to test your creation before publishing it .

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Yahoo says " Pipes is a composition tool to aggregate , manipulate ,mashup contents from around the web " . It allows you to remix favorite data sources ,create custom feeds by getting them together , sorting , translating and filtering and geocode (map the feeds to view on an online map ) them .It uses a drag and drop environment letting you to compose great applications with minimum code knowledge . Thus making it much more flexible than Google Mashup Editor .You can check out a free usage demo here

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Microsoft terms Popfly as " A fun, easy way to build and share mashups, gadgets, games, Web pages, and applications. " The product allows you to map any kind of information so that it can be shared with friends . Its a very user friendly and powerful source to step into small game and web creation .

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Online Bookmarking

2009-05-16T18:09:00.004+05:30

StumbleUpon helps you discover websites that match your personality.When the stumble button is clicked, the web pages that match your interest are displayed on the browser work area . Videos and blogs of your interest will also be delivered to you. the stumble button is located on the stumbleupon toolbar which can be downloaded from the StumbleUpon website. You can also rate the sites you visit by using the thumbs up and thumbs down icons on the toolbar. Through the rating ,StumbleUpon estimates your interests and adds similar sites to its database.

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Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users. Everything on Digg (news , videos ,images) is submitted by the user community. Each article submitted has a count .Each time a user clicks 'digg it' ,the count goes up by one. The submission with maximum digs will be displayed on the site's home page . Digg also provides tool to the community to discuss on digged articles.

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Its an online bookmarking service that enables users to tag ,share and save web pages of interest. Instead of having different bookmarks on your computer, Delicious makes it possible to have a set of bookmarks stored online so that they can be accessed from any other computer .The site allows sending to and receiving bookmarked sites from friends.

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Bloging Related Sites

2009-05-16T17:26:00.000+05:30

Its a major search engine that can be used to search blogs all over the web. To make finding easier, faster and enhanced, the site bares categories of blogs like politics , sports , business , etc. Its one of the fastest growing sites and is treated to be the best of its kind .

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Its one of the worlds most popular blogging site . It displayed a massive 91% raise in 2008. The site helps raise money for charity or for self use through ads and affiliate links besides being a simple way to gather and share information about peoples interests .

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Owned by AOL, Weblogs,inc is one of the largest blog directories with wide range of subjects from computers to games . The site bares widely accepted and followed blogs like Engadget, joystiq , TV squard , Autoblog , and TUAW.

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Blogger is an easy to use website with handy and advanced features, where you can post your thoughts , make friends with people , view other's blogs and know and share stuff you care about. It also servers as a means to earn through displaying ads managed by Google's AdSense in your posts .

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Online Map Services

2009-05-16T16:48:00.000+05:30

Google Maps ( earlier Google Local) is a web mapping service application and technology , free (for non-commercial use), that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google ride finder , Google Transit, etc.Google Maps cannot show areas around the poles .

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Wikimapia is an online map and satellite imaging resource that combines google maps with a Wiki system. It has about 10 lakh places marked. Wikipedia allows any user to add a tag to a desired location . The users can also associate upto seven pictures to each tag .

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Live search map (earlier Windows Live Local and Windows Live Map) is a powerful web mapping tool that comes with Microsoft's Windows Live, and is powered by the Microsoft Virtual Earth framework.The vital features of Live search map are Bird's eye view , Clear-flow and 3D maps .

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Online Office Tools

2009-05-16T16:18:00.000+05:30

Google Docs is a free web based word processor , spreadsheet ,presentation and form application offered by Google . One can create and edit documents online collaborating in real time with other users . The docs can be saved on one's computer in a variety of formats though the docs are automatically saved in the google server.

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Thinkfree Office Live an online office tool which unlike MS office runs on multiple platforms.Its very user friendly with captivating graphics and is compatible with MS office file formats . Also the site facilitates free 1Gb online storage space.

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Thesaurus.com , an Ask.com service, its the largest free online thesaurus that also includes antonyms . It delivers up -to- date synonyms from reliable sources .Its a joint venture that comes with Dictionary.com , reference.com and translate.com

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Zoho is an award winning ( Product of the year , 2009) online office suite that has emerged as a major competitor to companies like Google and Microsoft . Its provides a comprehensive suite, binding documentation tools like - Zoho Show (presentation tool) , Zoho Sheet ( Spreadsheet tool) , Zoho Writer ( word processor) , Zoho Docs( document manager), Zoho Notebook( note taker). It includes top collaboration tools like Zoho chat , Zoho Meeting( web conferensing) , Zoho Share , Zoho wiki . It provieds up to the mark facilities such as Zoho Invoice ( billing), Zoho Creator (DB manager) , Zoho Project (project management) , Zoho reports ,etc . While i can fill up the whole blog writting on its features , I'm just ending up with one of the best in its kind ; Zoho Mail . Zoho also offers some utilities that are not a part of the office suite such as Zoho challenge , Zoho Polls , Site 24x7 .

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Feed Subscribers and Managers

2009-05-16T15:35:00.001+05:30

Feedburner is a web feeds management provider launched in 2004 . Ever since it provides RSS feeds and management tools to bloggers , podcasters , and other web based content publishers . It includes traffic analysis and optional advertising system .

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This application keeps you updated via E-mail. You select feeds that interest you and receive updates from your favourite sites every hour ,every day , every week. You can check the global directory in case you do not remember or know the address of any feed.

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Google Reader lets you subscribe to your favorite websites .So new content comes to you when it's posted. One of the great things about Google Reader is the way it keeps track of what you've already read and what's still new to you.

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Its a parser , regenerator , and syndicator for and of RSS feeds. It lets you put content of RSS and Atom feeds on your site and also mix multiple feeds into a single feed.

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Social Networking Sites

2009-05-16T14:56:00.000+05:30

Twitter is a free social networking service that lets users to send and receive text-based posts of 140 characters in length called 'Tweets' . Tweets are displayed on a user's profile page and also delivered to friends called 'followers' .they can be sent or received via sms or the twitter website. It helps people stay connected in real - time . Twitting (posting)
can be done even through mobiles by visiting m.twitter.com . The twitter community is working to launch a new scheme in twitter where the site may be used to make money as well .

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Facebook is a free to access social networking site wherein people can add friends , send and receive messages , update their profile , share photos and videos ,etc . Its regarded to be the number 1 social networking site though many people prefer its counterpart Myspace . A great aspect of facebook is automatic linking and news feeds . The site also supports tagging .

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A United Online (formerly known as Juno online) service, classmates is a website that lets users to locate and interact with acquaintances from high school , college , work and military . It aims at reconnecting people .

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Online Video Sites

2009-05-16T12:45:00.000+05:30

Its arguably the largest video site on the web today. Numerable videos are available there. Besides hosting thousands of video clips, it also allows users to subscribe to their favorite online video channels and even upload and share personal videos .

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Its a place to find tons of short and full length videos , add them to your favorites , upload and download videos and also rate videos . Top rated videos are displayed on the home page of the site .

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It can be viewed as the second most popular online video site after Youtube that allows users to upload , download , view , and rate videos . It comes with a very useful feature called 'Family Filter' that can be used to forbid the display of videos intended for mature audiences .

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Slide Makers

2009-05-16T12:00:00.000+05:30

Its an online slide creating application with great features like uploading existing PPTs , downloading to Microsoft Powerpoint format , autosave , direct media upload form websites and quality templates. You need not install a software to run in . An internet connection is all thats required .And all this comes for free .

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Its a photo slideshow maker that can be used to create , edit slides with your snaps . The slide can be then shared with freinds through myspace youtube or email . It now comes with the Flickr support which makes it possible to use pictures from Flickr in your slides .

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Online Classifieds

2009-05-16T11:41:00.000+05:30

Its the largest and most popular classifieds and yellow pages in India. It is also the largest ticketer for events in India and movies in North America . Its entirely member generated with millions of pages of content and commerce created by its members in India , US and more. It allows a 30 days free advertising. One can avail a 45 days option by paid premium account. It facilitates options such as free customer calling and free messaging .

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Its an online marketing solution company that expertize in search , directories , classifieds, website marketing ,and web optimization. Its keeps track of your business marketing requirements and helps find customers over the Internet driving them to your website , email or phone .

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VOIP services

2009-05-16T02:31:00.001+05:30

Its the number one cross platform voice over IP (VOIP) software that enables voice chat , high quality video chat , IM and file transfer . One can access Skype on mobile too. While most of the features are for free , some paid services are also offered .

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Gizmo5 (formly known as Gizmo project) is a peer-to-peer VOIP that emerged as a counterpart to Skype. Calls can be made from the browser too ,without having to downlaod the software. So it can be used on machines that do not have the software installed. It combines features like - two way sms , call recording , etc .

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Photo Sharing Sites

2009-05-16T01:34:00.001+05:30

Presently the top rated online photo sharing site that brings together features like uploading images in various formats , simple editing , grouping snaps , printing , sharing , and searching . Its enables editing mouseover comments to whole or a part of an image letting the users make image presentation more descriptive .Provides limited free storage space for free accounts and unlimited storage for premium users ( Quite affordable though ).

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Owned by Google , Picasa is a robust digital photo sharing and publishing tool. It provides 1GB storage per account for free. It binds features like photo search, tagging , photo mapping , and reliable privacy settings.

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Photoshop Express a new photo sharing site that's quite impressive with great editing features and appealing graphics . Its an online version of the leading image editing software 'Photoshop' .Unfortunately one need to have a fast internet connection to run the site smoothly, as it is built on Adobe AIR.

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Chat Clients

2009-05-16T00:41:00.000+05:30

This application is a chat mashup that supports ICQ , Myspace , Gtalk , Facebook , AIM , Yahoo and MSN .It provides the flexibility of widely used instant messengers without having to download and install a particular software. It even works when you are behind a firewall. Isn't that good to know ?

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Its an in-browser instant messaging mashup similar to ebuddy and KoolIM . It supports MSN, Yahoo, AOL , Gtalk , Jabber , and ICQ. It also has the firefox extension in which the mashup is buit within the browser window. Once subscribed ,it can be accessed through mobile phones also .

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Its an application that enables its subscribers to communicate with friends either through instant messaging or sms , both for free. It features group messaging , scheduled messaging , recipient responses to the PC or MAC. While some basic services are for free , the site provides paid premium services too.

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