5 Tools Everyone Working Online Should Have (IMHO)
The number of people whose work is touched by the internet these days is hard to imagine. Many of us have been working full-time online for a while, but for the vast majority of people online today that's not the case. Here at RWW we communicate with people with a wide range of experience working online every day.
We've noticed that many people don't use some tools that would make their lives online much more effective and efficient. Here's our list of some tools we'd suggest are essential. Several of these tools will deliver huge value to your workday and take less than 10 minutes to get set up. Some will be obvious to full time web workers, but some suggestions may not be. They include: a multi-service IM client, cross platform screensharing tool, a custom search engine, a startpage and a blog with contact info.
Multi-service IM
Many people only have an active account with one IM service, often AIM or Yahoo! Messenger. It's nice to not be that person when you want to have an IM conversation. There are a number of applications that will sign you in to accounts on all the major IM platforms every time you open the app. Everything can be made easier with IM, especially phone calls where URLs can be shot back and forth with ease.
By using a cross-service IM client, you'll never have to miss out on an IM conversation with someone else who only has an account on one service.
The first step is to take a few minutes to set up IM accounts on AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger and GMail.
Then, get an IM client that will log you into all of those accounts at once. If you're on a Mac check out Adium, on Windows try Miranda. Once you take a few minutes to get this set up, you'll never go back.
Cross Platform Screensharing Tool
WebEx is like Kleenex (a brand name, that is) but it's not the only option for screensharing. Older Macs have a hard time using it. It's really clunky and people who pay for it say it's expensive. None the less, it's really nice to be able to let someone view your screen for a real-time demonstration.
The Mac to Mac screen sharing that iChat offers is really nice, easy and powerful. For the rest of the world though, there's a variety of options. I've been using Yugma lately and it works well for Mac to Windows sharing. Many people really like Yuuguu. What are your favorite tools for this? Whenever I'm looking for a popular way to do almost anything, I start by looking at a URL like http://del.icio.us/popular/screensharing.
A Custom Search Engine
Google Custom Search Engine lets you paste in a list of URLs and create a "miniature search engine" that brings back results only from those URLs you've selected. I use these all day long, every day. The next time you think "Damn, Marshall sure took some time to research details on this post" - you can know now that it was really just my Custom Search Engines at work.
Here's how you do it. Select some key news and reference sites in your field and set up a CSE for them, drop a link to it in your toolbar and use it whenever you can remember to. It's like an all-natural brain augmentation. My best personal custom search engines are closely guarded resources but try out some of these that we've posted here at RWW and imagine the possibilities. Check out our Mac Rumor Blogs CSE, US Government Watchdog Organization CSE and our very useful CSE of 100 Productivity Sites. You may not work in any of these fields, but ask yourself what the key reference and news sites are in your field and throw them in a CSE. It's super easy.
Is it a stretch to call a CSE essential? Use one for awhile and I think you'll agree that they really can become a key part of your use of the internet. The ROI of employing this tool is higher than almost anything else on the internet, honestly. I can't think of any knowledge worker, in any field, that wouldn't benefit greatly from a well-constructed Custom Search Engine. You can probably make one for yourself in less than 10 minutes.
Startpage
Every place I work I set up an RSS startpage for myself and my co-workers. Consulting clients, non-profits, anybody I can get my hands on gets a startpage before I'm done with them. I usually use Netvibes just because it's easy to share pages, the OPML handling is pretty good and the mobile version is great. The new Ginger version breaks sharing for some people, though.
I put the highest priority RSS feeds that I subscribe to on that startpage, then put a link to it on my browser toolbar. I click on that maybe once an hour and see if these top sources have anything new. It's quick and easy, much easier than opening up a whole feed reader.
What works well on a startpage? Depending on your job, some things are more important than others to be updated on frequently. Here's what I put on startpages:
Top blogs in your niche
Vendor blogs, press releases
search feeds
* ask.com for blogs, yahoo and/or topix for news, live.com for web if you like, Summize.com for twitter
* try searching for your org name, link to your site, top exec names, competitors names, key terms?
Blog With Your Name and Contact Info
This might seem silly, but everyone should have a blog of some sort. A dynamic web presence with biographical and contact information on it. A search engine-friendly place to let the world know what you're interested in and how to get in touch with you. That's not crazy, it's a real good idea.
Blogging can take more time and energy than most people are willing to expend. How about using Tumblr or putting FriendFeed on a page with your contact info? (Like Robert Scoble does.) However you can get timely, pertinent content up on the web next to your name - you should do it. It's a great way to demonstrate your engagement with your field and your intelligence. If done well, that's far better than most resumes. It also provides great context for people who are just starting to interact with you.
I put my phone number on my personal blog, and I write for the 11th most linked to blog on the web. I get maybe 3 unwanted phone calls a week as a result. That means that just about anyone else should be able to put their phone number and IM on their blogs as well. It's so convenient to be able to get a hold of people in a hurry. When an opportunity arises, do you want to be easy to reach or do you want that opportunity to be taken by someone else who is? Undoubtedly this is a calculation that's clearer for people less subject to harassment based on gender or race, but except in complicating circumstances your personal contact info should be available online if at all possible. Bad things are unlikely to happen.
Conclusion
Those are some of the tools we find most important to use, and that we wish more people we interacted with used. The difference between working with powerful tools and working without them is huge. What would you add to or subtract from this list?
Tools photo by Flickr user geishaboy500. Thanks for using Creative Commons licenses!
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Nice ideas. It seems I always get some value from a broad article like this. The separate CSE's idea is great, I can use that for more easily following my clients' interests. I use Google Alerts now to bring the information to me, but it is very focused and there is some value in having something more broadly searching.
Pidgin is another cross-platform solution for IM. Too bad IM has not really evolved over the garden walls. IM is better than Twitter for one-to-one conversations, but Twitter is nice for opening up the conversation across a wide group of people.
I guess I'll rethink adding my phone to my contact information. What could really go wrong? I use GrandCentral!
A start page is a must! I personally use Netvibes. . .it looks much better than iGoogle.
Rather than a start page, I set Firefox to load a folder of startup pages. I have a specific list of pages that I always keep open, so I have FF start with all of those tabs open. They include:
- Gmail
- Google Reader
- Google Calendar
- Google Analytics
- The back-end area of one of my sites
That allows me to dig into mail/reader, and then go from there.
Great post. I wholeheartedly agree with using Google CSE's. I work in the field of politics and public policy and was sick of trying to sort through irrelevant results on ordinary search engines, particularly when you are searching for policy information in areas like education or health care and are receiving lots of results for schools or health care providers (which are great, but not relevant to what I'm looking for). So when I came across Google's CSE about a year ago, I decided to develop a search engine specifically for this field.
See www.polisphere.com, which contains more than 3150 websites of elected officials, think tanks, research and advocacy organizations and other public policy websites. It went up a couple weeks ago.
One thing you didn't mention in your post was what I think is the most unique and helpful feature of CSE's - the ability to create refinements that allow you to further tailor your results. For Polisphere, we've created the following refinements, which let you search specific types of websites:
* Federal Government
* State Government
* Local Government
* Policy Organizations
* Old and New Media
In my opinion, the ability to click through these refinements and find resources from specific types of websites is extremely helpful in narrowing down results and getting rid of extraneous results.
Forget the gmail cr@pola!
Nice list. I use 4 of the 5 listed :) I stumbled the post for you. You've got a nice site here. feed reader here we come :)
Hey Marshall,
I've of late benefited from:
Flock
nDroid
meeboo
js-kit
tokbox
@ ballmer:
yeah, i agree. i bet you use thunderbird, like me?
Stability.
I'm using different online tools, preferably google's, but also msn, yahoo. And in my homenetwork I run several wiki's for different purposes. And my usage increases of online content and tools.
That makes me not tied to a specific workstation or platform, as my home have several computers with different os.
That's inevetably, as we move towards more and more mobility in different ways.
But at the same time I dont want to be totally dependent on online tools, especially not storage.
I want some kind of "backup".
As we move towards more and more mobility a strange thing happen.
The OS gets more and more uninteresting, not important, but at the same time You will be more and more dependent on that Your work environment, and collected/created data, is "safe".
You suddenly need More stability. Both from the online provider, but also in Your personal tools (HomePc, Ipod, etc).
The new Opensolaris (opensolaris.org) is an excellent platform for that. (Opensolaris includes pidgin, desktop sharing, ekiga, and more you can install later).
And with Virtualbox (virtualbox.org) You also get more independence from the os, or maybe I should call it OS mobility.
If you are working online two more apps you need are:
BlogBridge [http://www.blogbridge.com/] feed reader that is the only one that supports Sentiment Analysis. Usefull if you are searching into blogs/sites for positive/negative posts.
And also a great app/service is Evernote, [http://evernote.com/] allows you to share notes between clients/colleagues
Great post. I'm having doubts about customized search engine via google though; may I suggest Wikio which works pretty much like Netvibes with a supplementary feature: creating a tab (like netvibes) aggregating rss sources AND mashing them up with key words.
Good post.
I would be interested to know :
1) what features you would like to see implemented in the near future for your Netvibes startpage.
2) And what kind of On-line storage you could advise to use in combination of the other tools ?
Cool and useful thanks. Plug for the Hyperwords Firefox extension though: Not only can you create CSE but you can use it to get info right inside a pop-up menu while you are reading. (disclosure, I work in the Hyperwords team) http://www.hyperwords.net
I find the combination of del.icio.us and Google Reader a very powerful combination.
Blogs form a very important part of my "knowledge bank" and for other sources I bookmark these with del.icio.us and as I subscribe to my delicious RSS feed within Google Reader, I can use Google Reader's excellent search facility to index both.
See http://blog.gobansaor.com/2007/09/10/google-reader-km-killer-app/
Tom
We spend most of time online and will definitely try some of tools on the list. Thanks for sharing :-)
HappyTutors.com
~ Connect Tutors with Students & Parents ~
I also use iGoogle for my "radar". It's flexible and easy to customize. I have one tab as my radar page & others to cluster related topic.
Thanks for you tips.
nice round up. I personally like digsby for multi purpose IM - its an im client that is web base but it is an application which you can install on your pc. but it saves all your info in a cnetral databse so there is no re organizing everytime you install this im client, iot even does facebook im and email twitter etc
great aspect
Another vote for Google alerts for automated spy news delivery - this should be in any marketers toolkit.
Yuuguu looks really neat. It is going to save me so much money this year when I can get rid of subscriptions to gotomeeting, and gotomypc.
I'm going to try out Adium right now (been looking for something like this).
FYI - the link to Adium is adium.com rather than .org.
Thanks for the tip!
Nice article - every once in a while its important to step back as you have done to get a sense of what else is out there, as we all tend to fall into a rut otherwise. Made me think of what tools I use/need when I am not on-line and was quite useful.
Great post, we use Sosius (sosius.com) for collaboration and group projects.
I coudn't agree more
You can open netvibes all the time, it'll update without refreshing. :)
I strongly agree with what your saying here.
I have a few things you might also consider:
For screen sharing I use logmein.com. You can control the client or vise versa over http protocol via web browser. I use it all the time it's free and easy to set up.
Also for the start page I use www.protopage.com
I have about 4 rss feeds and 3 news feeds with 2 gmail inboxes(especially useful as u can only log into one at a time) a number of todos a calender and a clock. It is 100% customizable.
For IM I choose http://www.ebuddy.com/
It is web based and very simple to use...
Good information.
I will definitely check out Screensharing Tools and Custom Search Engine. Both seem like a productivity boost.
So thanks...
Good post. Thanks. I agree that the Screensharing Tool. Windows works well for that.
Ryan
http://www.mofata.com
Hey Marshall,
You should give Acrobat Connect a try for screen sharing - http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnectpro/. For people you want to meet with there is no download required because it uses Flash. For screen sharing the download is pretty small and works on Mac/Windows.
Let me know if you want an account to try it.
=Ryan
rstewart@adobe.com
Another option to use for screensharing is Microsoft SharedView beta. It's a free tool and is especially good for screen sharing Office documents.
Check it out:
http://www.connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=94
We're pretty high on Dimdim (of course I work there!) because our screensharing can work entirely in the browser with no plugin or app required of the viewer. And it's free for up to 20 people at http://www.dimdim.com. (and yes, Mac screensharing is coming in less than 6 weeks)
Superb!
I would love to see RWW cover essential tools for visualizing web flow. I have yet to find a really stunning web app that does this. Ideally, it would function somewhat like OmniGraffle (http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/OmniGraffle/), which is lovely — too bad it's a desktop app.
Has this topic already been addressed in this community? Does anyone have any suggestions?
Put both GrandCentral and SKYPE call-me links on my blog. You're right - what's the harm in having it available? If your website is more than a few years old, you probably had to provide your contact info that is now easily viewed via whois.
feeling very good about using Yugma. highly recommend to anyone doing online meetings, webinars, remote tech support, etc. especially loving their skype integration.
i keep a tumblr on my subdomain, and have a friendfeed & contact info on my homepage.
Is miranda better than pidgin? I'm a huge pidgin fan, never tried miranda. You could also mention meebo.com.
Vyew is a great application for desktop sharing and always-on collaboration. It has a fully functional free version and requires no software download. It works on any laptop or desktop platform with any browser.
"My best personal custom search engines are closely guarded resources."
Are the search engine closely guarded or are the sources closely guarded?
About Cross-service IM clients I think Digsby is not bad on Windows, and on Linux we have Pidgin :D
Talking about Start page services always remind me of PageFlakes immediately. It's too nice to me that I use it everyday.
And I want to say about some other cool webbased -utilities that we should use day by day like:
-Mindmeister for mind mapping,
-Stixy for noting,
-Gonushell for managing tasks (and noting),
-Google Calendar is good for planning and calendaring, ^^
The best homepage for a web worker: Google Reader.
And what about video-emailing ? Email is effective because it’s easy and you can create something that can be read anytime in the future. Video chatting is great because it’s visual. You can impart emotion, tone and energy. But, very often the person you want to chat with isn’t online at the same time. Maybe they’re even in a different time zone.
What if you could have the best of both worlds ? Yes, it's possible through video emailing. Take for exemple Eyejot ( http://www.eyejot.info ) With Eyejot you truly get the best of both worlds. You can be sending video messages to your friends, family and business colleagues, literally, in seconds. The Eyejot difference is that there’s no software to install! :-)
Superb post. You can try Digsby too for IM. It is one of the coolest new client around.