Thing 19 - Web 2.0 Awards

And the envelope please...

Of all the applications and sites, 2 stand out for me as incredibly useful, so much so that I couldn't choose one. So we have co-winners: Google Docs and Bloglines.

Google Docs is hands down the neatest app I've run across this year. It truly facilitates collaboration in a way that enables everyone to win. You don't need to own Brother Bill's bloatware to be able to work across the world on projects. All you need is an Internet capable computer. It handles the 3 most frequently used document types (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), effortlessly shuffling them between multiple users, who can make and view changes. Simply a beautiful idea made real.

Bloglines, as a feed aggregator, is useful for it's time saving ability in gathering information in one spot. No more searching your 50 favorite sites to see if something's new - you can know in one site. It's easy to set up an account, and equally easy to add and delete feeds as necessary. You can keep especially interesting items from feeds new, so they're easy to return to. The interface is straightforward and a pleasure to use. I'm a big fan of easy, good, and very useful.

Libraries obviously can use Google Docs on projects of any sort - I did exactly that back in April to share Excel spreadsheet data between work and home. As for Bloglines, any library could create a list of its own blogs that were relevant to its users and make the list of feeds available to its customers, either internal or external.