40 Places to Find Web 2.0
& Social Media for Your Web Site

Published: July, 2008
Author: Kathy McShea

The ability to embed information you have on the Web at other social media Web sites makes this an exciting time to communicate online. The benefits of managing these Web 2.0 sites in conjunction with your current site are:

:: Your content is no longer trapped on your site and

:: New eyeballs can find you at these other sites; it’s new “referrer” traffic to your site!

For those who build Web sites, the fact that this content is hosted off your site but available to embed in your site or others gives your content an astonishing degree of flexibility. You no longer have to be able to code complicated scripts to launch rich content on the Web.

We Can Help

The Emerald Strategies Web production “starter package” has a sliding scale for assisting you in getting your own user generated content from Web 2.0 sites embedded in your site. You create the content elsewhere and we’ll tie it into your site.

Our menu pricing for Web production offers three levels of Web 2.0 integration. At the basic pricing level, we’ll configure two; at the modified pricing level, we’ll configure four; At the custom level we’ll configure up to seven. For additional Web 2.0 integrations we bill hourly. Help creating your content is available for an up-charge.

If we are asked to recommend only seven for a typical business site, we'd pick LinkedIn, Del.icio.us, Add-This, Form Logix, Slideshare, Mapbuilder and a weather badge.

Social Media: Our 40 Favorites

Want to pick your own favorites? We’ve scoured our sources and collected a list of some of the best Web 2.0 social media tools around. We're pleased to showcase links to our top 40 sources in html on this page or as a PDF report 40 places to find Web 2.0 for your Web Site (PDF, 409 MB).

Now you have an easy way to select the tools you want to deploy on your site. The Web 2.0 services listed on this page are available at no charge, with some providers making premium versions available at a small fee.

Don’t forget: when you are live you must maintain your Web 2.0 site presence. Don't set it and forget it.

This list is organized into 14 key task categories. It used to take a room full of custom code-slingers to produce the feature you wanted. Now, free plug-ins listed on this page do all the heavy-lifting for you, greatly simplifying the build-out of your site and putting content publishers – not engineers -- in the driver’s seat.

In addition to the 36 favorite social media widgets, gadgets and plug-ins you'll find below, we've included four directories to explore at the bottom of the page if you just can’t get enough of this stuff:

On This Page

Audio and Music
Calendar
Connect
Forms
Images
Links
Maps
Publishing PPTs and PDFs
Surveys and Ratings
Timeline
Translation
Video
Weather
Widgets
Bonus: 4 Web 2.0 Directories

	Audio and Music
	Audacity. Free software to record and mix audio and convert it to MP3 format from your desktop.
	BoxNet. You can create a widget for cataloguing up to 1G of MP3 files for free here. The system also supports file sharing in other formats and has paid subscriptions when you go over the limit. Good for collections.
	MP3 Player Widget. A lightweight audio player for use on your Web site to offer users playback of original audio. Good for individual audio files.
	Imeem. Create playlists for music, images, video.
	RockYou. Photosharing slideshows with music, popular with the tween-set. Although you cannot use your own music, their jukebox gives you wide choices of artist and genre.


	Calendar
	Google Calendar. The embed feature allows you to post your calendar online so you can easily share your calendar with others, and pull in other public calendars to help you de-conflict schedules. A mobile version is available for your PDA.
	30 Boxes Calendar. This calendar offers the same functionality as Google, with a full-screen look. It permits import and export, mobility, to-do list, SMS messaging and more.

	Connect
	LinkedIn. Facebook for Adults.

	Forms
	Form Logix. Easily design your own Web forms and publish on the Web. The free version includes advertising and the low-cost version is free. Capture content of those who write you with the form in a database that you can download to Excel or administer online. Receive immediate notice of new form queries to any email address.
	Iceberg. Build custom applications and forms without coding!
	ZOHO Creator. Use a free Web form builder allows anyone to easily build Web forms that suit their needs. This is one piece of a robust suite of ZOHO productivity tools.

	Images
	Picasa. Google’s online Web album page lets you share your photos online and includes an embed feature to place photo albums into your Web pages.
	Slide. Share slide shows, photos, host images, publish widgets, get code to embed into your own site.
	Wordle. Create a beautiful word-cloud image.

	Links
	Add-This. One button – completely free – lets you spread your content across the Web using the most popular bookmarking and sharing tools around, including easy posts to users accounts for delicious, dig, Stumble Upon and more.
	Del.icio.us. This gadget lets you move your bookmarks from your browser to the Web, so they aren’t trapped online and are easily accessible to you from any computer in the world. Functionality includes RSS feeds and communities so you can see what others are bookmarking and discover new sites.
	Snapshots. Allows you to preview content without leaving a web page (including rich media, maps, photos, audio)
	Apture. Rich links that keep users on your page and provide context to readers.

	Maps
	Map Builder. Tag your location and publish a personal map to your own Web site.
	GoogleMaps. Helps people find your location and get directions.

	Publishing PPTs and PDFs
	Slideshare. Post PowerPoint slides. A popular site for conference materials. Tagging promotes easy searches. Tool to add audio turns your slideshow into a slidecast.
	Scribd. Publish and search PDFs.
	Flypaper. Only works with PPT 7.0; also configures images and objects in flash. Usability quirks in Beta in an otherwise powerful flash creation tool.

	Surveys and Ratings
	Polldaddy. This lightweight widget lets you poll your Web visitors and enables you to see the vote totals immediately.
	JS-Kit. This online tool allows you to insert a star rating system below your Web content to get reader feedback. You can also enable comments, with or without moderation. The navigator service is a widget for users to browse by what’s hot, editor’s picks plus a grab-it feature for easy re-publishing.

	Timeline
	Circavie. Create an interactive timeline to tell your story. Use your own pictures and videos, and embed the finished product on your Web site.

	Translation
	Mini Site Translator. Translate your site into multiple languages. Know that the quality of the automated translations may be criticized.

	Video
	YouTube. Upload and share videos. When you have your own channel you can enable a feature to provide a custom viewer that features only your videos.
	Screencast-o-matic. This service lets you record action on your desktop. Useful for help desk support and tutorials for using online services.
	Freescreencast. Record how a Web site works right from your desktop. Host it on their Web site or embed it on your own.
	Jing. Select an area of your screen, capture it as an image or record it as a video, and then click Share to send an email, IM or get the code to post on your site. Control access and ownership of your content. 200MB of free storage.

	Weather
	Weatherlet. Put your local weather forecast on your site.
	Weather Badge. This weather badge shows current conditions from any zip code.
	Live Weather. Real-time weather info for any US city.

	Widgets
	SpringWidgets. Create an RSS reader, badges or widgets for your Web site.
	Sproutbuilder. Build and publish widgets, include video, audio, images, newsfeeds.

	Bonus: 4 Web 2.0 Directories
	Go to Web 2.0. An exhaustive directory of Web 2.0 services.
	Webware 100. Cnets list of the top 100 social media services.
	WidgetBox. Self-proclaimed world’s largest widget directory.
	Mashable. 100 ways to organize your life.