22nd
My 10 favorite web applications
10 of my favorite web-based software applications (‘web apps’). Simple, elegant, effective and just plain beautiful! Check out the list:
Evernote: Task management. Perfect way to organize your life (if used effectively!). Write small notes, tag them, search through them.
Google Calendar: How online calendars should have been all along. Why did it take so long for someone to get it right ?!
GMail: Nothing beats it. Its SO good, and I found myself using it so much, I actually started using a more crappier email client just to reduce my overall email usage (before I switched back of course :P).
Tumblr: Tumblr is my new grand central on the web and replaced Wordpress for my blogging needs. It is so much more integrated and better suited for posting photos, videos, tweets, etc.
Alertle: For reading RSS feeds. I designed it because I wasn’t happy with any of the other feed readers out there. Such a powerful idea of our time, there had to be a better way, or so the thinking went. With version 2.0 almost out the door, can barely wait for it :)
Trac: For software project management. Integrated wiki, can see developer code commits, etc. Why would software teams, whether in a small startup or a Fortune 500 company need anything else ? Its free, open-source, but most importantly, it “just works”.
Basecamp: 37Signals Basecamp is another useful project management application. Its original, simplistic design inspired a lot of other apps out there.
Google Maps: The finest mapping application out there. They built it once, and they haven’t had a need to make much changes to it ever since.
Flickr: The most beautiful photo-editing application in the history of mankind!
Facebook: And of course, Facebook! There were social networks before Facebook, and there have been social networks after Facebook, but the reason Facebook got off to a flying start is because they got the user interface just right (apart from making sure people used their real world identities). People love it, because it shows them what they want (what’s happening in their friends’ lives’), and then gets out of the way. 175 million users and counting..
Hats off to the designers, developers, backers and other folks associated with these. Thanks for making the world a better place! :)
Special note:
Kiva: The smartest and the most effective way of doing charity - transferring wealth from regular folks here in Canada, US, etc - to budding entrepreneurs in developing countries. I made a small $25 loan to an electrician in Nigeria to enable him to buy more equipment and grow his business, and he has already paid back half of it! I heard Kiva’s founder is coming to Toronto for the Mesh conference in April - can’t wait to meet her!
