#0: CMS (Content Management System)
#1: Screen capture as image, video or narrated slide show
These tools record your action on computer screen (whole or part of the screen) and narration. So they're perfect for creating demo video, narrated slide shows, and illustrated stories.
- Screenr: can send screen capture video to mobile, too
- ScreenToaster: can add subtitle and capture webcam images
- Jing: can't record webcam
- CamStudio: open source software that can record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs)
- Delicious: share bookmarks with your other computers or other people
- AddThis: generates buttons or icons that allow users to print, email, and share content via over 50 social network destinations. I use it on this blog (see icons at the bottom of this post).
- Publish 2: used by New York Times and many other media organizations, the tool facilitates collaboration among journalists. A great example of its use in the snow flooding coverage in Washington state.
- Top 10 Apps for Scheduling a Meeting Online
- Doodle: easy scheduling
- Google Groups: share documents, have discussions among group members
- Etherpad: real time collaborative text editing. Used by NPR and WBUR
- Open Atrium: Drupal app. An intranet in a box that allows different teams to have their own conversations. Features: blog, wiki, calendar, to do list, shoutbox, and dashboard.
- Eventbrite: create and manage events including ticket sales and donation collection
- Storify: curate what people post on social media into compelling stories. E.g. NPR story on Tucson shooting
- Nutshell Mail from Constant Contact: tracks social media activity and delivers a summary to your email inbox on your schedule. Can track Twitter, Facebook, FB fan pages.
- PiratePad: allows two or more people to see what one another are writing in real-time. It's more immediate than Google Docs.
- Join.me: to share desktops
- FreeConference.com: conference calls. For a small fee, you can record the audio. Pair that audio up with video of the related slides, and you've got a webinar recording.
- Paint.net: image editor for Windows only
- Free Alternatives to Photoshop With All the Bells, Whistles, Filters, & Layers: a list of free photo editors with comparison scores against PhotoShop
- Kaltura open source video: a video editing tool. I haven't tested it yet since I don't work with video much.
- Animata: animation editor
- Prezi: zooming presentation editor
- FusinCharts: use Flash to animate charts and graphs
- Switch: audio converter Software
- Celtx: media pre-production system. write scripts, storyboard scenes, schedule productions, etc.
- Simple Video Converter: convert MP4 to AVI
- Free HD Converter: convert MTS video (e.g. files in Sony video camera) to AVI, WMV, MP4 etc.
- Aviary's Phoenix, online image editor
- Aviary's Peacock, online visual effects editor
- Aviary's Myna, online audio editor
- Big Contact: free audio and video player. Has nice podcast player that can be embedded to a web page.
- AuthorStream: free online tool to convert PowerPoint slides (including embedded but not linked audio) to MP4 video. To embed audio, change PowerPoint option "Link sounds with file size greater than" to 50000 kb or so. The sound file size smaller than that will be embedded.
- Google Analytics: can measure web visits by iPhone as well.
- CrazyEgg: visualize visitor data
- Twitoaster: Twitter ranking and stats
- Klout: influence score of your Twitter account
- Alexa: demographics of web users for a site. Can compare sites.
- WordPress: can create not only blogs easily, but also non-blog web pages. Web traffic stats is built in. I would have used it for this blog if I had discovered earlier because it offers more flexibility and usability.
- Jimdo: also offers lots of widgets that can be embedded in a web page
- The Codeless Website: Four Awesome Tools for Creating Cool, No-Tech Sites
- WAVE: Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool
- Processing: open source programming language to program images, animation, and interactions
- Flare: data visualization for the Web
- Google visualization API gallery
- Google Chart Tools: create static or interactive charts and maps
- Dabble: online database (free version for up to 15 users and 100k entries)
- Zoho Creator: online database (free version for 2 users, 3 apps and 1000 records)
- Tweet Cloud: cloud of words that your tweets mostly contain
- Dipity: tool to create timeline
- Vuvox: timeline creator using photo, audio, video and animation. E.g. Saving Donna's Brain
- TimelineSetter: an open source interactive timeline tool that can create a timeline from a CSV file
- Google Maps: create your own
- amMap: interactive Flash map
- Crowdmap: interactive map with dynamic timeline and data trackin
- OpenHeatMap: upload spreadsheet (Excel or Google spreadsheet file) and get instant heat map. Can also include time data to create interactive map. An example from Guardian.
- Mapnik: open source, easily extensible and suitable for both desktop and web development
- MapBox: a suite of open source tools and services for creating and using custom maps in the cloud
#8: Usability test
- FiveSecondTest: test impression on landing pages and what users click next. Has free version.
- FeedbackArmy: $15
- Loop11: free version. Can do A/B test, comparative test, etc.
- Verify: 30 day free trial. See where people click, what they remember, or how they feel.
- TagCrowd: creates your own tag cloud from any text
- Wordle: generates word cloud like an art
- Qualtrics: online survey software
- CutePDF: creates PDF from any file that you can print
- Widgetbox: self-service web widget platform
- Monitter: Twitter conversation monitor
- Zamzar: free online file conversion tool. Can convert audio and video files as well.
#10: Collections by others
- Tools for News: collection by the Society for News Design (SND)
- Ben Franklin Project: collection by Journal Register Company who produces all 18 daily websites and newspapers using only free web-based tools
- Journalists’ Toolkit: collection by Prof. Mindy McAdams of University of Florida