Where Is the Central Web Apps Directory?
by Anita Campbell
We are all spoiled, in a way. We have access to way too many free Web-based applications.
Need something? Check around. Chances are there’s a free app to help you do some small piece of your job or run your business or organize your life.
Not even sure you need it? Don’t worry — you’re bound to run into something intriguing that you can waste a lot of time trying out just for the sake of … well … trying it out.
What reminded me of this is a blog post I ran across over at Smashing Apps. The post was called: 21 Online Free Web Based Applications That You Probably Would Love To Use Every Day!
It profiles 21 Web-based applications that are free. Some of the applications look quite helpful. Some I use already, such as Crazy Egg.
Others I personally would not find as helpful — such as the application that lets you highlight a Web page (as in a yellow highlighter). Or the application that lets you share sticky notes (I have plenty of paper sticky notes stuck to my monitor, bulletin board and anything else that sits still long enough for them — not sure I need electronic ones, too).
Of course, that didn’t stop me from wasting 40 minutes trying those two apps out, only to decide I didn’t need them.
But, I am not knocking those applications. Clearly, somebody finds those applications helpful or they wouldn’t have been invented. Nor would they have made it into somebody else’s list of 21 top apps, unless they were helpful.
Today it seems like there’s a Web app for everything — and for everybody.
That brings me to the point of this post:
How do you find all these small free applications in the first place?
Aside from happening upon them in blog posts, or knowing precisely which search terms to look up in Google — where do you look?
And what if there happened to be two different sticky note applications? (Maybe there are!) How would I learn about both? And how would I be able to tell which gets better marks from users or professional reviewers?
For freeware/shareware software, over the years central download sites have popped up, such as Download.com and Tucows.com. You can go to those central sites, search by keywords and categories, read reviews, and find virus-free downloadable software.
But as far as I know, there’s no central place with such a comprehensive listing/directory of free Web-based applications. (If there is, somebody, please tell us!)
What we need is some kind of equivalent to Download.com — for free Web apps of all kinds. Hmmm … sounds like a business opportunity to me.
