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.

Thing 18 - Online Applications & Tools

I have to be honest - I investigated Google Docs because I've used it extensively already and am trying to finish by Oct. 2! I promise to go back at a later date and examine ZohoWriter!

Google Docs is tops in my book. Why? - you don't have to have Word or Excel or PowerPoint on your computer in order to share the documents! This allows you to work anywhere you have a computer that has Net access. On my main computer at home I eschew Brother Bill's Office suite, instead using OpenOffice for my office productivity needs. It's powerful, open source, plays well with Microsoft, and is completely free. This leads to some conflicts when I have to bring work home, as was true in the spring when I had to work on preparing data from some lengthy spreadsheets for a major project in a short amount of time. Google Docs to the rescue! I was able to load my docs, make the necessary new docs from them, and save the new docs back to Google. I could also email the documents to all the people who needed them, both for comments and for final review. This is one of my Top 5 web-based tools!