Idly browsing the Internet these days makes me feel like I was sleeping in a virtual cave for the past few months (which is an eternity in Internet time) and woke up in the new and improved world of Web 2.0 to see all those newfangled implements seemingly stuck at a perpetual beta (how may betas can you count in the above logo collage by the way?), where social software is king, and rss, rich media and Ajax programming are all the rage.
So I run from sign-up page to another, eager to benefit from all that Web 2.0 goodness, with apps that do everything from photo sharing to online to-do lists. Not all that shines is Web 2.0 though, many apps are all filler no killer, making me regret that 30 seconds I spent filling up the sign-up form. Sifting through the junk, here is what I think are some both cool and useful web apps, with some being higher on the cool than useful scale.
Flickr: if you haven’t heard of that already, then you’ve been living in the cave with me.
Blinklist: “social bookmarking“...a communal pool of web links. Useful becuase I have a ton of bookmarks I am tired of organizing them into folders, and syncing everything between my desktop pc and laptop. Using websites like Blinklist or Del.lic.ious I can just keep all my bookmarks online without organizing anything, then find what I need later using tagging, which is another Web 2.0 wonder. (Also see
Spurl and
Shadows)
Rememberthemilk.com: Online supercharged to-do lists. I dig it becuase I don’t like PDAs, and paper organizers are so 20th century. There is also
Backpackit.
Youtube.com : Video sharing and blogging. I can post videos without having to host them on my own webspace (albiet with a great deal of quality loss).
Last.fm: Social music network. Uses a plugin that grabs whatever is playing on your media player and uses that to recommend new music.
Netvibes: “Modulated” personal start page, with rss reader, Gmail checker, etc. Kind of like My Yahoo on steroids.
43things: Kind of cool but I don’t really get the point behind it. A list of things you’d like to do (or have done), and you can give or be given “cheers” on these things. Collective wishful thinking? There is also 43places (places you want to go or have been to).
WhatShouldIreadNext?: Being a fan of paper-based entertainment, I am always asking myself this question since I really don’t have a certain genre that I stick to. Plug in a book title + author name and get a list of recommendations for your next book. There is also Reader2
Now all I am missing is a website to do my laundry and fix me breakfast.
