Michael Arrington has a great post listing what web 2.0 websites he couldn’t live without. I don’t know that there are any sites I couldn’t live without but there sure are a few I use that make my life and my day more productive. I’m also not going to limit myself to web 2.0 sites, but here are the sites that help me GTD:
Gmail: Say what you want about the Google borg and it’s all knowing all seeing tentacles, but web based email is a much better solution than PC based email. It will be great when someone figures out how to merge “cloud computing” with offline computing (Google gears is buggy as all get out) but I’m willing to deal with that one downside in an otherwise stellar program
Google Reader: Again the borg has another foothold in my life, but aside from a few suggestions it’s a stellar product, IMHO much better than bloglines and netvibes. I really wish everybody would give up the partial feed nonsense and the offline gears things worked but again I can deal. I think I’ll dump my client sanitized feed list later this week.
Google Documents: I’ve got 12 bloggers/writers who work for me all over the planet, hands down there is no easier way to share and collaborate on documents. Cloud computing isn’t the spot for confidential documents and things like proposals, but for something that will be in the wild within 2-4 weeks it’s an excellent choice.
Google Analytics: Again it’s not for everyone and you should still be running server logs so people like me have the data to dissect when things go wrong, but you get decent data without getting your hands dirty.
Firefox: This is the one program that I use every single day more than any other. It’s my workhorse. I’ll drop a post with my extensions later this week as well.
Delicious: There are lots and lots of bookmarking solutions delicious is one of the best. With the new toolbar FF integration it’s near perfect and the social sharing aspect also a huge plus.
Twitter: Sure most of the time it’s fun and games, but I’ve hired writers from twitter, solved tech issues, gotten news, and on other accounts even use it for marketing and sales.
Amazon: It’s my number one spot for buying almost everything online, highlight the term use and FF plugin to search amazon once click shopping enabled and I’ve made a purchase in three clicks. Now that they have MP3’s they are giving ITunes a run for the money. I could care less about the price difference the DRM free is the deal maker for me. I’ve bought more albums from Amazon since they went DRM free than I ever bought from ITunes. The Ipod integration is another super feature. If only you could get the unbox videos onto my ipod as well.
ITunes: This is the one piece of software I really wish I could get rid of, and I’d drop in a heart beat if I could. However they made it nearly impossible to get music/video/pictures impossible to get on and off of your iPod without it. There are workarounds and alternatives but they are clunky, cumbersome and buggy at best … damn you itunes you ruined it … damn you all to hell (planet of the apes reference for you youngins)
Trillian: My friends are all real particular about which IM/Chat they use. Trillian makes it possible for me to communicate with everyone no matter where they are. Upgrade to pro ($25) and you can even chat with GTalk.
Wordpress: I have a love/hate relationship with wordpress, they make it really easy to publish and I use it in tons of places. If they would just be a little SEO aware and stop making decisions that make it necessary to use plugins to make it more search engine friendly out of the box everybody’s life would be sooooo much easier.
Tripit: I don’t use it everyday but it does make it really easy to keep track of all your travel stuff. Combine it with filters/rules in Gmail and the magic of automation simplifies your life.
Grand Central: This seemingly simple software enables me to route calls wherever I want my cell, VOIP, my wife’s cell, the pizza parlor (just kidding). If you travel overseas and don’t want to get screwed on rate changes it’s perfect.
Digg: I wish you would die I hate you just slightly less than Itunes. I have to play your game for now, but when you die I will dance a jig on your grave … twice … with tap shoes. I say a prayer every night that Mixx will stomp you into the ground
Blog Desk: this is my #2 workhorse right after firefox it lets me write and upload to multiple blogs. The single best feature is the image editing. I can uplod from a file or the clip board (I could kiss you for this feature), I can also resize and crop without opening photoshop, I so think I have a serious man crush on you.
So there ya have it. Feel free to make your own list and drop a link to it in the comments below. While we’re at it I’ll tag some people like Jason Calacanis, Danny Sullivan, Barry Schwartz, Steve Rubel, Bill Hartzer, and Jeremiah Owyang to see if they are willing to share.
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{ 14 comments }
Just downloaded “Anxiety” for the mac, its free and a To-Do list style app…not web 2.0…but so far, I am liking it, reminds me of tasks, etc…also…another app that I use (I know it seems archaic to use software now…) to read RSS on my Mac is Newsfire…
Other Mac apps:
Adium for chat
Chax for iChat to extend iChat functionality.
Pages – its so easy to use.
TextMate – having projects and html or code snippets rocks.
Finally, I love using LinkedIn to keep in touch with professional contacts and answering questions is always fun…
Cheers!
@tonyadam
I will never use free e-mail for biz purpose. Free email like google, yahoo are fine for mailing list subscriptions, register with other websites etc.
I personally use the heck out of netvibes as a productivity tool. I have one tab that’s a “dashboard” with Gmail, different search tools, a to-do list, “sticky notes” and such, and then separate topical tabs for all my RSS feeds.
And I actually LIKE that Wordpress doesn’t come SEO’d out of the box. Really, it only takes a couple of hours and a few plug-ins to optimize it, but that small investment of effort helps set those who are serious apart from those who are just playing around and learning. When you automate too many things, you lose out on the process of learning. JMO.
Tried to installl BlogDesk but it dies when running looking for dhtmled.ocx or one of it’s components.
/shrug
Sounds like a great program tho.
G-Man
G-Man
They have instructions on their FAQ on how to fix the problem with dhtmled.ocx
I use Blogjet, a paid program, and it works very well for me, but after testing blogdesk it looks like a good alternative.
The only thing that blogjet has over blogdesk that makes a big difference is that blogjet has the ability to highlight what I want to blog about in FF or IE and with a right click put it in blogjet with a link already done. That is a great timesaver.
Tom
On my list of items to write about now… Good topic.
I don’t use Gmail for business, I prefer handling the anti-spam myself with a specialised third party provider (Reflexion.net). They ensure nothing is *ever* bounced (only quarantined)- you can’t get the same assurances with any of the free providers.
Blogdesk looks great though, thanks for the heads up Michael
Being a Non-Profit we use mostly web 2.0 free sites, I would say Squidoo drives the most traffic, and all of the following Blog catalog-Youtube (See website) or use Goodsearch to search for Steveffeo
N-P marketing is much closer to For Profit marketing then I first anticipated. Another lesson learned:) Going to check out Blogdesk Thank you for the tip.
Thank you for reminding me of Blogdesk.
I used to use it on my old computer, but when it died I went back to a five year old computer that I borrowed from work (no one else wanted it).
I use the ScribeFire plugin for firefox for most of my writing, but when I’m off-line Blogdesk works great.
Did my list on my other site. It made me realize I’m so stuck in the past. I must be getting really old.
http://www.scribbleonthewall.com/2008/01/03/gotta-have-it/
Good stuff. Always nice to see what others are using to be more productive. Would love to try Grand Central. Could you send me an invite? Much Thanks.
MG you were the one who turned me onto Blog Desk and I could kiss you for it too! But I won’t.
Yeah the BlogDesk program looks pretty good. I think I’ll be spending a few hours playing with that tomorrow
Wolf – I am LOVING me some Blog Desk. I may never us wp-admin again. The photo and text alignment capabilities are phenomenal. I only wish I could use it to edit static WP pages. Other than that – best new app I’ve found in ages. Many thanks.
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