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10 Web Application Tips that Can Simplify Your Life
Companies can see the Internet as a business opportunity – as a new advertising, communication, promotional or selling
channel. Individuals can see the Internet as a mobile workplace. You can use office and multimedia applications directly on
the Internet from any place in the world. You need only an Internet connection and some suitable appliance (e.g. smart phone,
PDA1, laptop or desktop in Internet café). The applications available on the Internet are called web applications or online
applications. This article tries to summarise the most useful free application types that you can find on the World Wide Web.
�e next paragraphs might seem like a PR
article from Google, but the majority of
representative – popular and widespread
– applications originate from Google labs.
�is article is not, therefore, PR, but just
an objective view of the situation in the field
of web applications. As one Czech legend,
Jára Cimrman, once proclaimed: “We could
disagree with it, we can protest against it,
but that’s the only thing we could do about it.”
1. Communication
Almost every Internet user has an e-mail
account today, whether a company or private
one. A lot of users can access their e-mail
account not only via their e-mail application
but also via web interface as well. One of
the best is, for sure, Google Gmail (http://
mail.google.com/ ). It is a well-arranged
e-mail client that enables – except for receiving,
writing and sending e-mails – categorizing
of (label) mail, use of shortcuts, filtering
of spam and storage of nearly 3 GB of data
in an inbox. Google Gmail is available via
mobile phone as well (http://www.google.
com/mobile/). One of the widespread instant
messengers – ICQ, or as ICQ2Go! (http://
download.icq.com/download/icq2go/ ) – is
available via an Internet browser as well.
So you do not need to install anything when
you want to communicate in real time, as you
can keep in touch with your ICQ contacts
all around the world. Internet telephony
clients (e.g. Skype) are unfortunately not
available via web interface.
2. Searching
It is quite impossible to find something
without a suitable search engine nowadays.
It is more important to get relevant results
than to get a lot of results, quality is better
than quantity. �at is why vertical search
(quality – depth) plays a leading role in
the expanse of horizontal search (quantity
– surface) very o�en now. Vertical search
is possible due to search forms with filters
and categories of data that are indexed and
described by keywords. Full text search is
important too because it enables a search of
the content of documents, and not only on
the meta data (descriptive information). It
is not a surprise that one of the best online
general search engines is Google (http://
www.google.com/ ). Google offers an offline
module as well – Google Desktop (http://
desktop.google.com/ ). A�er installation
you can use it for the search of documents,
e-mails and other files stored in your
computer. It can also be integrated with
other applications or plugins – Google
Desktop Gadgets (http://desktop.google.
com/plugins/ ).
3. Content Aggregation
�e Internet’s advantage can be a disadvantage as well. We face information overload
today. �e Internet is full of data that we
can hardly transform into information or
even knowledge. �at is why information
and knowledge management is more and
more important. It is increasingly difficult
to recognize relevant things in the right
context. �is problem can be partly solved
at the online level by content aggregation
and syndication tools. Every good web
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page offers an RSS channel now. �e RSS
channel summarises the content of a web
page. You can subscribe to it and then
read the content via a special reader – e.g.
Google Reader (http://www.google.com/
reader/ ). �ere is no need to search and
browse many web pages as they can be
reached from one application. Almost all up
to date Internet browsers support the RSS
function (e.g. Mozilla Firefox, http://www.
mozilla-europe.org/ ).
4. Office Tools
�ere is no need to install even basic office
applications. You can use them online too.
Ajax13 (http://us.ajax13.com/ ) tools offer
almost everything – text editor (ajaxWrite),
graphic editor (ajaxSketch), spreadsheet
calculator (ajaxXLS), presentation editor
(ajaxPresents) and multimedia files manager
(ajaxTunes). �e text editor and spreadsheet
calculator are available as well via Google
Docs & Spreadsheets (http://docs.google.
com/ ). For time management, you can use
Google Calendar http://www.google.com/
calendar/). �e mentioned applications usually dispose with the import/export functions.
5.-6. Multimedia & Communities
Internet users generally prefer information
sources that they can change or adopt.
We are talking about folksonomy, or user
generated taxonomy – content classification.
�ere must be only a few people who do not
know about YouTube (http://www.youtube.
com/ ) for video sharing, Flickr (http://
www.flickr.com/) for photos sharing, MySpace
(http://www.myspace.com/ ) for social
networking and complex presentations with
blogging, or Last.fm (http://www.last.fm/ )
for music recommendations and individual
Internet radio. All mentioned websites
dispose of connected discussions (chats),
ratings and recommendations.
7.-8. Publishing & Encyclopaedias
Everybody wants to publish now. You can,
of course, build and run your own web site,
3
but it is far simpler via an online CMS .
A particularly popular one is WordPress
(http://wordpress.com/ ) which has an
offline version (http://wordpress.org/ ).
You can focus on content rather than
administration. Wiki is a special type
of CMS that is used for discussions and
collaborative content editing. Wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/ ) is one of the
biggest online open encyclopaedias where
registered users can contribute. �e fact
that you can contribute and someone else
can edit (extend) your article influences
Wikipedia’s very vivid platform.
9.-10. Analysis & Statistics
�e right tool can help improve content,
position in search results, and attract new
4
customers. �is task is connected with SEM
5
/SEO . A good tool is another application
from the Google family – Google Analytics
(http://www.google.com/analytics/ ). You
can get a good overview of your visitors and
you can even trace them.
�e growing quantity of data and
information on the Internet, along with
sharing and re-using of that data, causes
problems with copyrights and licensing.
Authors, scientists, artists and educators
can classify their works via the Creative
Commons system (http://creativecommons.
org/ ) for use in images or photos. For
an effective search of various media
(audio, video, photos, images) using the
Wikimedia Commons repository (with
proper rights information), you can use
Mayflower (http://tools.wikimedia.de/
~tangotango/mayflower/ ).
Online applications can have complex
intranet/extranets built upon CMS and
these enterprise portals can integrate with
other company information source such as
so�ware and hardware (e.g. communication
systems via interface). Enterprise portals
can manage process automation and
workflow as well as enable personalisation
of individual settings (e.g. navigation and
structure). Interaction, feedback, ratings,
voting, discussions and recommendations
are also available.
1/ PDA – Personal Digital Assistant (similar to a large mobile
phone but with an operating system and more functions).
2/ RSS – RDF (Resource Description Framework,
W3C recommendation/standard) Site Summary.
3/ CMS – Content Management System.
4/ SEM – Search Engine Marketing (marketing focused
on search engines).
5/ SEO – Search Engine Optimization (optimization of web
sites for search engines, to be more accessible).
Patrik Plhoň works as a Consultant in Et netera a.s., a company providing
smart e-business solutions. He graduated from the Institute of Technology
in Sligo, Ireland, with a Business Information Systems specialization).
He loves sports, travelling, music, cinematography and literature.
You can contact him via e-mail at [email protected].
BCC – Working for a better business environment