How 2.0 Are You?
by
on February 20, 2008,
Web 2.0 is a term that means different things to different people, but there are some common characteristics that seem to characterize Web 2.0: alpha or beta status. A certain look and feel to sites. Social aspects to the application (for the most part). Building something that should enhance something else (Facebook apps, browser plug-ins). Some things are also common that also crop up, like frequent down-time, or lack of a business plan that ends up with a site shuttered, or too many like versions with your social network seemingly spread across them all. If you're like me, you have a string of user accounts and passwords miles long (thank you PassPack), but how 2.0 are you really in your daily life? How many of these apps can you no longer live without?
Like most freelancers, I want to tear every hair out of my head around this time of year. I hate dealing with taxes and realizing that I haven't done a thing about keeping my books well, and am therefore digging through my email folders and accordion files looking for all my receipts. Of course, I can quickly grab my income using my PayPal history, but I really need to get on the ball with more current accounting instead of creating a spreadsheet every year. I have no interest in using the kludgy Mac version of QuickBooks, so I went online looking for a service. Here's a hint, folks, there isn't anything out there for small business accounting. I know of several like Wesabe for personal accounting, but I wasn't able to find anything that would give me a nice P&L statement at the end.
Of course, this got me thinking; how much am I actually DOING online? If my first reaction is to look for a Web 2.0 application to do my business accounting, what exactly am I doing online?
Like most people, I blog, so that's one. In addition to my articles here at Profy, I also have a little blog I just started on Profy's platform, and a few other scattered about that I contribute to on an irregular basis. I read not only regular news, but also subscriptions to many top tech sites run through Twitter in my IM client to keep up on what's happening in the tech world, and I check Facebook throughout the day as well for recent stories that friends may have posted. A quick check of my email that includes any family birthdays, deaths, or births in my huge family sends me straight over to Geni to post news items, send birthday greetings, or update information, and any article ideas I find in email or feeds get added to our Profy shared worksheet on Google Docs (although I'd love to switch to Peepel, quite frankly). Sandy also sends me Tweets and email reminders during the day letting me know where I have to be and when, and Dandelife Minute Mails show me streams every morning for people I follow.
PassPack also remains in a browser tab at all times for a quick check of how to log into any number of applications. I have Particls 2 running most of the time, and my trusty search friend SurfCanyon has been with me for two days, but I don't see uninstalling it any time soon. iLike is always running in iTunes, and a Ma.gnolia bookmarklet sits in my toolbar for marking anything I may want to refer to later. And while I haven't bothered to actually register with Upcoming, I check it every day to see who is going to be attending Web 2.0 Expo in April. And my to-do list in Remember the Milk sits next to my Google Calendar, which not only stores my schedule, but also calendars for my family.
Just off the top of my head, at least 15 Web 2.0 apps are part of my daily life. That isn't including apps that I use occasionally, or things I may have running right now that I forgot.
How Web 2.0 are you?
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to profy RSS feed!
Bob
S.o.G.
John Jones
John
D!@N@
65bus 
Irel Johnson 
I live and work online. I have my laptop with me even when I watch television (in fact I wrote here on Profy recently about finding a new Web 2.0 app to help me watch MORE television. Google Docs (SO MUCH better than Peepel to use), including calendar, email, RSS feeds, Geni, games, an alumni site I run, finding friends, tweeting, music, movies, blogs I write - I spend nearly every waking minute plugged in. I’m online so much my handwriting has actually deteriorated from lack of practice.
I never admitted that as leslie does
- but hmm.. yes.. live and work online is a good definition. Until a year agi I didn’t think I’ll use so many applications online - too much of the stuff in the net had nice UI, lots of tagging 
but lacked real life business value.
but in any case due to the imap implementation of goole, using an offline reader is very problematic).
Things have changed, and as spending most of my life in the “traditional software” world, I’m now convinced that we are near, but not yet there in having almost anything as a service.
I’m using Google Docs (simpler and more functional then any other “pretty” apps i’ve seen - the only rival is Zoho IMHO.)
Gmail (apps) is my main mail email accounts and program.I didn’t find yet a good offline client to replace outlook (which I practically almost abandoned since it became such a “heavy” monster
For my daily tasks and work gmail together with google calendar and the Remember The Milk add-on script which integrates it inside the gmail screen is the best solution i found so far.
I’m using Zoho projects and planner in my work, using facebook as main social platform (together with little bit of others), music, movies, etc. and for RSS’s i got in love with Flock (the browser) and i try to keep my RSS feed to the minimum necessary , all the rest is filtered via google alerts and lands in my gmail box, so I an search or read in my free time. Ma.gnolia for bookmarks…. hmmm there are plenty more (linkedin, plaxo, goosync etc.) And i’m still looking for a good small business accounting… that all (well… you know.. for now:)
you could always have your QuickBooks hosted - then you access it like an online app - even from a Mac!