How to Tie-in all Your Web 2.0 Tools
by Celine Roque
With all the Web 2.0 tools available at our disposal, it’s growing increasingly harder to keep track of all our accounts. To stay up to date, you’ll need to log on to a social networking site, your personal blog, your professional networking site, a microblogging account, and all the other Web 2.0 tools you’re fond of using. And even if you can keep track of all these tools, it’s time consuming to do so. What are your alternatives?
A social networking interface. Social networks including MySpace and Facebook include optional add-in applications – some of which are tied to other Web 2.0 tools such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, and even your blogs. If you find yourself frequently using a particular social network that allows third-party applications, you’ll benefit from making that your access point for most of your tools.
Email. All the Web 2.0 tools I’ve ever encountered (and that’s a lot) support communication via email in some way. Whether it’s by sending you simple email notifications and reports or allowing you to input data via email, your Web 2.0 tools can be easily monitored and accessed through a single email interface. This can be both a convenience and a curse, as it’s very easy to accumulate email clutter this way. Because of this, it’s recommended that you limit any received notifications to what’s necessary.
RSS. Getting RSS updates from your favorite Web 2.0 tools is just as common as email updates. The downside of RSS is that it’s just one-way. You can’t input data such as a new blog post, a reminder, or a note. It’s good for mostly passive Web 2.0 tools, but not if you’re using applications with a lot of interactivity.
Your browser. Several browsers such as Opera and Firefox support the addition of plug-ins and widgets. Look around and it’s very likely you’ll find that some developers have created a way to integrate at least a third of your existing Web 2.0 tools with your browser of choice.
What do you use to integrate your Web 2.0 tools? Are you able to combine all your tools or just a few of them in one interface?
