My 10 Favorite Web 2.0 Apps

I've been involved with Web 2.0 since it was, uh, Web 1.0 (maybe 0.1?), and I thought it was high time to publish a list of the Web 2.0 apps that I find especially useful, as well as those that I'm just now trying out that could become especially useful.

1. Linked In - probably the most useful (and profitable) service that I use--allows you to put together a professional network based on the six degrees of separation concept, and then mine that network for job opportunities, etc. It's 100% trust-based, and I can attest that it's highly effective. As an example, I currently am "linked in" to 318 people. Through those people, I can reach 89,000 "2nd degree" contacts (friends of friends), and 3.4 million "3rd degree" (friends of friends of friends) contacts. Pretty powerful networking.

2. Delicious - A wonderful place to store all of your bookmarks in one place--and then find them again. The service installs buttons on your Web browser's toolbar, and when you want to bookmark something, you just hit the button. Delicious then prompts you to add a description of the bookmark, along with tags that make it easier to sort and search your list. You can choose whether a given bookmark is public or not--you can share your bookmark lists with the public if you choose (or not). The best part for me is the ability find a bookmark from virtually any Internet-enabled PC, anywhere.

3. Salesforce - Salesforce.com, affectionately known as SFDC, was a pioneer in the software-as-a-service area, and the company continues to innovate. In addition to SFDC's core competency, which is sales force and marketing automation, the company has built an incredible network of partners that have developed value-added applications that extend the reach and functionality of SFDC to new heights. For anyone that is in a sales or marketing role, I highly recommend it.

4. Google Apps Suite - I use virtually every component of the ever growing Google suite of applications. This includes Google Mail (which can also be used with your own domain), Web hosting, Calendar, Maps (including the mobile Blackberry version, which is absolutely amazing), etc., etc. More amazing is that virtually all of it is free (advertising sponsored).

5. Blogger - I've used Blogger for about four years now, and am completely happy with its blogging capabilities. You can create blog posts via the Web, and it's also possible to create posts via email (say, from a Blackberry). If you're interested in blogging, definitely check out Blogger. I should mention that Blogger is yet another free Google service.

6. Wikipedia - the days of having to cast about for information on "things" is virtually over due to Wikipedia. An entirely free, user supported encyclopedia. Wikipedia has entries on virtually any subject. Building on the Wiki concept, in which anyone can make changes to virtually any page, Wikipedia has built an extensive network of editors and reviewers which serve to help ensure that entries don't get hijacked or fall victim to graffiti--and also that the entries meet stringent style and writing guidelines. Wikipedia has evolved into a meta organization called Wikimedia, which includes Wikipedia plus free dictionary, books, news, quotes, and even a university. Awesome stuff.

7. Technorati - a search engine and consolidator for blogs, Technorati is wonderful for finding blog entries on virtually any subject. The home page is also a great way to take the pulse of the blogosphere to see what's hot.

8. Digg - allows users to post web articles that they think are cool -- and the more people that "digg" a site, the higher it rises in rankings. If you want to see what's hot in any area (like technology, for example), you can just go to digg and see what's getting dugg a lot. Also, if you don't happen to agree that a particular article is "all that", you can "digg down" an article. I keep an RSS feed to several Digg categories on my iGoogle home page, along with conventional news feeds like CNN.

9. YouTube - it seems just yesterday when I first heard about YouTube from a friend and I spent the next 2 hours marveling at all of the videos that were up on the site. The next thing I knew, Google bought them, and now they're a house hold word. Viral marketing at its best.

10. Flickr - another hyper-viral site, flickr was the grand-daddy of sorts to YouTube, only with pictures. The service, which is owned by Yahoo, allows you to upload all of your photos (the free service limits the amount of transfers you can do in a month, and also stores the pictures in reduced resolution, while the "pro" service (which costs about $30/year) has no limits. I use the pro service to hold all of my digital photographs--it's a great way to ensure you have a backup of your photos, and an even better way to organize and share them. Well worth the money. Now, if you could only store all of your photos and videos in one place.....

In addition to my ten favorites above, you might want to check out the following honorable mentions:

1. Yahoo Go!: wonderful mobile application that you can load into your Blackberry, it integrates a number of key Yahoo services, including news, weather, sports, flickr, Yahoo OneSearch, and more. Highly recommended for any Blackberry user.

2. Trip It: a free service that automagically creates travel itineraries that you can share with friends and family. The kicker is that all you need to do is to forward the itinerary email that you get from your travel service (even if the itinerary is in PDF format!), and Trip It parses out the entries and puts them all into a single, sharable calendar. Very cool stuff. You can also put manual entries into it and even click a button to check in for flights directly from their user interface.

3. Pandora: free music service that learns what type of music you like, allows you to group them into "stations", and then plays them on your PC. The rating service is based on a proprietary way of determining the musical "DNA" of a given piece of music, and then matching it up with what your likes and dislikes are. Genius! Now if I could only play it at work (their web site is blocked by our IT department, as is YouTube and a number of other "fun" services mentioned above).

4. Antennaweb.org: free service that allows you to determine what over-the-air (OTA) high definition and digital TV broadcasts are available in your area, and what type of antenna you will likely need to receive them. Great resource.

Apple Safari Beta Gets Lost in the Weeds

I decided to try out Apple's new beta version of Safari for Windows (Safari is Apple's Web browser that was previously only available on the Mac). After hearing good things, I downloaded and installed it on my PC, which is a beefy Dell Latitude D620 with a dual-core processor and 2GB of RAM--more than exceeding the stated minimum requirements to run the browser.

The install was fairly quick and simple, and after the install was complete, I rebooted my PC just to make sure that everything installed cleanly.

After the reboot was completed, I launched Safari with great anticipation....and that's where my excitement rapidly deteriorated into despair. Safari opened a browser window and then got stuck--nothing displayed on the screen, and no controls worked in the browser. After a few minutes, I noticed my laptop beginning to get slower and slower, and a quick check of the Windows task manager confirmed that Safari was using 100% of one of my processors (apparently it isn't capable of leveraging multiple processors)--and it was also gobbling up RAM at a prodigious rate. I finally killed the process after it had used up over 500MB of RAM--and the browser was still unresponsive.

Just for grins, I uninstalled, rebooted, and reinstalled--with the same result.

So far, it looks like I'm going to be staying with Firefox--at least until Safari finds its way out of the weeds!

~

Netcraft: Web Reaches 100M Sites

According to Netcraft (www.netcraft.com), which has conducted surveys of the total number of web sites on the Internet:

"There are now more than 100 million web sites on the Internet, which gained 3.5 million sites last month to continue the dynamic growth seen throughout 2006. In the November 2006 survey we received responses from 101,435,253 sites, up from 97.9 million sites last month.

The 100 million site milestone caps an extraordinary year in which the Internet has already added 27.4 million sites, easily topping the previous full-year growth record of 17 million from 2005. The Internet has doubled in size since May 2004, when the survey hit 50 million.

Blogs and small business web sites have driven the explosive growth this year, with huge increases at free blogging services at Google and Microsoft. Domain industry juggernauts Go Daddy (U.S.) and 1&1 Internet (Germany) have also seen strong demand for low-priced domain names and shared hosting accounts.

The first Netcraft survey in August 1995 found 18,957 hosts, with the NCSA web server dominating with 57 percent market share, leading CERN (19%) and a newcomer named Apache (3.5%). Microsoft's Internet Information Server launched in February 1996, and by the survey's fifth birthday the server market was largely divided up between Apache and IIS. This month Apache leads with 60.3% market share, with Microsoft at 31.0% and Sun at 1.7%.

Previous milestones in the survey were reached in April 1997 (1 million sites), February 2000 (10 million), September 2000 (20 million), July 2001 (30 million), April 2003 (40 million), May 2004 (50 million), March 2005 (60 million), August 2005 (70 million). April 2006 (80 million ) and August 2006 (90 million). "

Netcraft: Web Server Survey Archives

Amazing growth. Makes me wonder what the curve will look like in the next 10 years....

Create a searchable Google map

An excellent article on how to create searchable Google maps:

Vitamin Features » Create a searchable Google map

Using Amazon S3 for PC backup

A gentleman by the name of Jeremy Zawodny has published a couple of excellent blog articles outlining his plans to replace a home backup server with a service provided by Amazon known as S3 (stands for Simple Storage Service).

S3 is a hosted storage system that Amazon has released in the form of Web services that allow virtually anyone to use their storage on a "pay by the drink" basis. Their pricing is very reasonable-- US $0.15/GB per month for the storage, and US $0.20/GB to transfer the data to and from S3.

Jeremy's first posting outlines a cost justification for using S3 over maintaining a home backup server, and he does a great job of analyzing the costs (including electric use and the cost of the server)--in a nutshell, he shows that 5 years of backups on a home server is $2,275 assuming that no hardware maintenance is required, vs. $1,688 using S3 (assuming pretty hefty storage growth rates, from 125GB to 200GB).

Jeremy's second posting contains a list of utilities that backup local data using S3, most of which are free. I will definitely check them out, and kudos to Mr. Zawodny for some very useful and interesting thinking!

Replacing my home backup server with Amazon's S3
A List of Amazon S3 Backup Tools

iTunes 7.01 Released for Download

Apple releases iTunes 7.01


Apple released iTunes 7.01 today--reputed to solve many of the bugs that iTunes 7.0 introduced, including crackling noises, iPod sync problems, etc.

Apple - iPod + iTunes - Download iTunes

Bezos gives a look at 'hidden Amazon'

The 'Hidden Amazon'

Interesting column in InfoWorld outlining some new Web services that Amazon have released that allow them to sell excess storage and compute capacity to third-parties. Amazon has always been regarded a Web services pioneer, beginning with their early work in publishing their products and shopping cart code as Web services, making it easier for Amazon partners to incorporate Amazon into their own Web sites. The new set of Web services, known as "Simple Storage Service" (S3) and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) are "pay by drink" services. Amazon also released a third Web service, known as "Mechanical Turk", which allows developers to easily post questions to a large group of people.

Bezos gives a look at 'hidden Amazon' | InfoWorld

Makes me wonder what's next for Amazon--grid computing and on demand????

How BitTorrent Works

Howstuffworks "How BitTorrent Works"

An excellent article that explains just how BitTorrent works, along with some of the more esoteric terms, like "seeders" and "leechers". Highly recommended reading for those who desire a deeper understanding of BitTorrent. The article also has an excellent primer on peer-to-peer networking in general.

Zoho - An Impressive Suite of Web 2.0 Apps

Zoho - Affordable software for individuals, small & medium business

I just came across Zoho today, and they have assembled an impressive list of Web 2.0 apps, most of which appear to be free or low-cost. The first application that I have used is Zoho Projects, which is a free project management tool that seems pretty decent (you sure can't beat the price). I was able to create a project plan for a demo platform that I'm working on in less than five minutes--try *that* in MS Project! Curiously, Zoho Projects does not appear in the list of Zoho apps--perhaps it's in beta and they're limiting access to people who come across it (like me).

Upon further investigation, I discovered that Zoho is actually a product of AdventNet, whom I worked with quite a bit as an industry analyst. AdventNet has quite a collection of enterprise management, security, database, software testing, and now collaboration/CRM (Zoho suite) products--they have been very busy! AdventNet got their start years ago by creating an SNMP toolkit that is embedded in many systems management products today.

I plan to try out the other online Zoho tools, which include an office suite (replete with a word processor, spreadsheet, collaboration software (email client, calendar, etc), chat client, presenter, planner, and even a CRM tool--quite an impressive list. Virtually all of them are 100% free with the exception of Zoho Virtual Office (the Outlook-like app), which is free for up to 10 users, and Zoho CRM, which is free for up to 3 users. I have not been able to find pricing for Zoho Project, but my guess is that it is free for up to a certain number of users.

In addition to the office tools, Zoho also includes a set of management tools, including a Website monitoring service (100% free!), a survey tool, and a tool for evaluating candidates--the latter is free for up to 25 candidates. Incredible.

This is by far the most complete set of apps that I've found in one place--rivaling what Google is trying to assemble with Writely, et al. Kudos to the AdventNet team for creating all of these apps, and for making most of them completely free!

WikiCharts � Top 100 � 08/2006

WikiCharts � Top 100 � 08/2006

Cool new tool that shows which Wikipedia pages are accessed the most.

WikiMapia - Cool Web 2.0 Mashup

Today I discovered a very cool Web 2.0 mashup that combines Google Maps with Wiki functionality, allowing people to tag places all over the world, adding their own comments and information. I heard about them as they recently announced that the millionth place had been tagged, indicating (to me, anyway) that they are "for real".

To try them out, I tagged the two fishing camps that I visit every year: Davin Lake Lodge and Wathaman Outpost (their commercial website is at http://www.davinlake.com) . To view the tags I created, click on the boxes, and if you've visited their camps, feel free to add to my entries (anyone can edit any of the listings--the beauty of Wiki!).

I also recently added a WikiMapia entry for my company, Proxima Technology, which is about to relocate its UK headquarters to an awesome office, called the New Lodge, near Windsor.

Cool stuff!

Google Cheat Sheets (Version 1.02)

Google Cheat Sheets (Version 1.02): "This two page Google Cheat Sheet lists all Google services and tools as well as background information. The Cheat Sheet offers a great reference to grasp of basic to advance Google query building concepts and ideas."

Cool!

Web 2.0 Technologies: Rails, Geocoding, and Google Maps

Web 2.0 Technologies: Rails, Geocoding, and Google Maps

Cool article on how to use Google maps with Rails. I've decided to embark upon a spare time project to learn Rails, and this is probably as good of a place to start as any!

While I'm on the subject, I came across a very entertaining intro to Ruby at http://poignantguide.net/ruby/ ; I don't know how good it is at actually teaching you how to program in Ruby, but it's a fun read nonetheless.

Fifty Ways to Take Notes » Solution Watch

Fifty Ways to Take Notes » Solution Watch

Sung to "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover", this site shows 50 ways to take online notes, including Writely (which was recently acquired by Google). Nice compendium.

Instiki-Instant Wiki

Instiki

This is a Ruby-based instant Wiki application that allows you to run a Wiki server on your PC with very little installation and minor overhead on your PC.

All that is required is Ruby (which is free), and Instiki (which is also free).

That said, I tried to install it last night, and while the install went without a hitch, when I tried to access the Wiki page, it would only come up with a blank page. I even tried changing the port and shutting down my firewall-no dice. When I have time I'll spend more time playing with it, as I think the idea is a really great one for keeping track of personal notes, and such--think of Wikipedia, only it has just your stuff in it!

Free "secure" anonymous e-mail

FREE secure anonymous E-mail to a friend, client or colleague: WillSelfDestruct

This is an interesting service--you type in a message, specify who to send it to and a time limit (e.g. 30 seconds), and if they leave the page, refresh, or if time runs out, the message is automatically destroyed.

There is only one problem that I can see--the web page isn't encrypted (e.g. the supposed "secure" message is being sent over the Internet in clear text! Perhaps that's in version 2...."Now featuring REALLY, TRULY SECURE messages!"

Hmmm.....OK, so again--where is the business model?

Podbop-great new mashup

This is a web mashup that won first place at Mashup Camp a couple of weeks ago. It is a service that generates a Podcast that contains the bands that are playing in a given city (as an RSS feed), along with an MP3 file of the band playing, if available.

Podbop uses Eventful as its base source for local event data, and they use a variety of other sources to provide the mp3 files. The URL is www.podbop.org, and I just subscribed to the service--it seems to be working as advertised. Hopefully I'll find new cool new bands that we'll want to go see this weekend!

The Next Net 25: 25 startups that are reinventing the web - Mar. 1, 2006

The Next Net 25: 25 startups that are reinventing the web - Mar. 1, 2006

Could one of these be the next Google?

Windows Live Local - Virtual Earth Technology Preview

Windows Live Local - Virtual Earth Technology Preview

Now THIS is cool--a Microsoft technology preview that lets you drive through a city (virtually, of course), including all of the views you would get in a normal car (front, back, left/right, etc). It will be really interesting to see where they take this technology.

Live Thumbnails: Watch 'em Grow

Live Thumbnails: Watch 'em Grow

A really cool bit of Javascript wizardry that allows you to create image thumbnails that magically grow to full size when you click on them.