Bend the Internet to Your Will – Part One

I realize that Web 2.0 seems to be the decade’s buzzword and you are probably getting tired of it; but, you have to understand that this is essentially the Internet’s second renaissance. Ideas are being created at a rate never seen before in human history, and the power of collaboration has exceeded everyone’s wildest imaginations. Though we’re supposed to have jet packs and visiting distant stars, science fiction authors never quite predicted the cultural revolution that has occurred in the last seven years.

Web X.xx (Is that better?) reinforces Sir Timothy Berners-Lee’s original purpose for the net, that it be used for collaboration and information sharing (for researchers). Of course, like everthing the real world, the internet didn’t stay confined to just that, and now I can stay updated on David Hewlett’s life minute by minute while watching a homemade video on YouTube about the dangers of smoking.

Alright, enough of my rambling. Web X.xx has become synonimous with anti-productivity, frivolity, and uselessness. However, that is not the case. There are literally thousands of web apps/operating systems (more on this later) out there to increase productivity, improve project management, and decrease expenses.

Collaboration

Google Docs & Spreadsheets & Gmail

These two Google services almost perfectly integrate with one another combining the best web-based email with a very good document/spreadsheet editor. Gmail uses tags to categorize your messages instead of the old-fashioned folder system, and its spam filter is one of the best in the business. Also, the Gtalk application allows you to communicate with your friends, family, and coworkers with ease, since you don’t need to download any software.

Google Docs is an almost perfect online office suite, with a weak PowerPoint application. It opens a wide variety of files including Microsoft Excel and Word documents with ease. But the true magic comes from GDoc’s ability to open Gmail attachments and save them without having to touch your hard drive. From there, these online documents can be shared with as many collaborators or viewers as you want, making sharing much easier than having to email an updated version of that report.

Personally I know of one company that uses Google Docs to host their time sheets, allowing their employees to update this billable hours quickly, securely, and easily. This decreases the amount of time allotted for time management and increases productivity.

Zoho

Is another great web application, and although it doesn’t integrate with Gmail at all (which doesn’t really matter to those who don’t have accounts) it encompasses the entire Microsoft Office family offering alternatives to Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Their suite of software doesnt just stop at these three applications, project management, email and collaborative options are also available, but sadly I haven’t used them.

Skype

This internet telephony company has literally revolutionized international communication. For computer to computer teleconferences, Skype stands above the rest since it is: Free, Easy to Use, is about as Private as you can get. Every home and office has a computer, and with Skype’s software, you can easily invite and setup meetings in the office, region, nationally, or internationally if you have a good internet connection. For big companies this might not be a great thing, but for the smaller start ups this can help cut costs immensly.

Also, with the introduction of SkypeIn and SkypeOut, businesses (or home owners) can pay for an account that allows them to call any landline or cell phone in the world using their computer, and don’t have to worry about minutes when calling within North America. All of these things are done through the computer and internet connection, so it helps consolidate the bills and number of devices that are taking over the office.

Photo by: Rodrigo Vera