More Free Web Tools for Everyone

There are tons of free and good tools online to help public broadcasters (and others) accomplish essential online media tasks such as creating and posting image, audio and video files, having audience share content with one another, and so on. Below are some of the free and easy tools that I have accumulated so far. Please add yours to the list and together we can build an impressive online tool kit for public media.

#0: CMS (Content Management System)

#1: Screen capture as image, video or narrated slide show
These tools record your action on computer screen (whole or part of the screen) and narration. So they’re perfect for creating demo video, narrated slide shows, and illustrated stories.

Screenr: can send screen capture video to mobile, too
ScreenToaster: can add subtitle and capture webcam images
Jing: can’t record webcam

#2: Sharing and collaboration

Delicious: share bookmarks with your other computers or other people
AddThis: generates buttons or icons that allow users to print, email, and share content via over 50 social network destinations. I use it on this blog (see icons at the bottom of this post).
Publish 2: used by New York Times and many other media organizations, the tool facilitates collaboration among journalists. A great example of its use in the snow flooding coverage in Washington state.
Top 10 Apps for Scheduling a Meeting Online
Doodle: easy scheduling
Google Groups: share documents, have discussions among group members
Etherpad: real time collaborative text editing. Used by NPR and WBUR
Open Atrium: an intranet in a box that allows different teams to have their own conversations. Features: blog, wiki, calendar, to do list, shoutbox, and dashboard

#3: Image, audio and video editor

Paint.net: image editor for Windows only
Free Alternatives to Photoshop With All the Bells, Whistles, Filters, & Layers: a list of free photo editors with comparison scores against PhotoShop
Kaltura open source video: a video editing tool. I haven’t tested it yet since I don’t work with video much.
Animata: animation editor
Dipity: tool to create timeline
Vuvox: timeline creator using photo, audio, video and animation. E.g. Saving Donna’s Brain
Prezi: zooming presentation editor
Google Maps: create your own
FusinCharts: use Flash to animate charts and graphs
Switch: audio converter Software
amMap: interactive Flash map

#4: Web traffic measurement

Google Analytics: can measure web visits by iPhone as well.
CrazyEgg: visualize visitor data
Twitoaster: Twitter ranking and stats

#5: Website design

WordPress: can create not only blogs easily, but also non-blog web pages. Web traffic stats is built in. I would have used it for this blog if I had discovered earlier because it offers more flexibility and usability.
Jimdo: also offers lots of widgets that can be embedded in a web page
The Codeless Website: Four Awesome Tools for Creating Cool, No-Tech Sites

#6: Data mining and visualization

Processing: open source programming language to program images, animation, and interactions
Flare: data visualization for the Web
Google visualization API gallery
Google Chart Tools: create static or interactive charts and maps
Dabble: online database (free version for up to 15 users and 100k entries)
Zoho Creator: online database (free version for 2 users, 3 apps and 1000 records)
Tweet Cloud: cloud of words that your tweets mostly contain

#7: Other useful tools

TagCrowd: creates your own tag cloud from any text
Wordle: generates word cloud like an art
Qualtrics: online survey software
CutePDF: creates PDF from any file that you can print
Widgetbox: self-service web widget platform
Monitter: Twitter conversation monitor

#8: Collections by others

Tools for News: collection by the Society for News Design (SND)

Headlamp Pictures