I've tried probably the majority of the web 2.0 awards winners. Web 2.0 is just that fun. Some faves:
Zillow--how can you not like knowing what the retail price is on your and your neighbors' homes? Mesmerizing.
Craigslist--the best part is being able to create custom RSS feeds for your searches. Okay, so I haven't bought anything from a Craigslist listing yet, but I've seen all kinds of cool merchandise. Alas, there is no section of Craigslist for Southern Maryland, probably why I haven't bought anything that's in my RSS feed listings--too far to drive to D.C. or Baltimore areas.
Meebo--great product, I have several patrons who use it because we don't have IM software installed on our machines (who wants to deal with the viruses and spyware?). All your regular options for your favorite IM vendor are there.
Feedburner--cool to see how many people are subscribed to your blog, traffic on your blog, etc. Very easy. Of course, I only have 2 people subscribed to my blog. There were seven subscribed yesterday! That bad, huh? :-)
Pandora--I listen to Pandora sometimes when I edit--I can't listen to anything that I know the words to, because those words get mixed up with the words on the screen. I think it does a pretty good job of picking music that I like.
Picnik--easy photo editing tools, no program to download. You can get pretty good results with it.
Personalized Google--I start here every day. I have modules for Gmail, Google Reader, custom searches, Google Maps, Google Bookmarks, LOLcats, Amazon search hack, and lots more. Loooovvve it.
Some new stuff I tried:
Etsy--a friend of mine is wild about Etsy, and I can see why. It's like going to the hugest craft fair ever without having to either sweat or freeze. Really fun and beautiful handmade things for sale here.
BeGreenNow--a simple calculator for finding out your carbon footprint (the damage you're doing to the earth, basically) and tips for reducing your carbon footprint. You can also purchase carbon offsets--pay the company to do green things on your behalf, such as buying renewable energy, funding reforestation, and supporting technology that helps offset carbon credits. To completely offset my household's carbon usage, I'd have to pay about $20 a month. I'm very seriously considering it--I'm a pretty green person, drive a very efficient car, use fluorescent lightbulbs and other energy-reducing devices, recycle, compost, etc., but it's very difficult to completely offset one's carbon use and this company's efforts may make a serious difference in the fight against global warming (think this summer's drought was just seasonal variation? Think again....)
Biblio--I'm not sure why Biblio won anything. They have fewer books than AbeBooks. It's great that their costs for sellers are lower than other places, but I don't really see anything special about this site, it's just a place with books for sale, and there are lots of those sites out there.
Yelp--was okay, but not a lot of reviews on there yet, at least not in our area. Might have to write a few myself. Would be very useful while traveling, so you can find out what the good restaurants, places to stay, etc., are.
All in all, there are wonderful web 2.0 tools out there. Internet tools are becoming much better integrated, tons of mashups, and as developers see the kind of use that people have for the Internet, they are designing tools that fit the user, rather than the other way around.
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1 comment:
Thanks for going over a lot of the awards that I was too lazy to try. You've made a few of them sound tasty enough for me to go back to again.
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