Navigating the Sea of Web Apps

There are so many different web apps available today, and an excessive number of them are geared toward business. These software solutions claim to help streamline your tasks, such as updating social media, tracking and analytics, and creating forms and surveys. Yet the sheer breadth of options creates a tyranny of choice; sifting through is too time consuming for many organizations. When there are over 150 apps available to make using Twitter more efficient, why should you even bother?

This dilemma might have been what Mashable had in mind when they published a list of tools recommended by community managers. If you are curious about how you can benefit from online tools, their advice is definitely worth a look. Mashable’s contributors highlighted some of my personal favorites, I added a few more that I find extremely valuable:

Bitly – Link Shortening and Tracking

I use Bitly every time I share a link on Facebook, Twitter, or a blog – it shows how many people clicked on the link over time and which site they accessed the link from.

TweetDeck – Twitter Management

This app gives Twitter a big boost with extra functionality. Easily monitor what people are tweeting about your brand and your field, and reach more followers by scheduling tweets to be published at any time of the day.

Kuler – Color Theory

Adobe’s Kuler (pronounced “cooler”) allows you to see how different colors play off one another, very helpful when deciding on a color palette. I especially like the option to sample colors from an uploaded image to generate a theme.

Podio – Project Management

Podio has created highly customizable tools for everything that goes on behind the scenes, including project management, collaboration, company intranet, and employee social network.

Basecamp – Project Management

Basecamp is an easy way to keep everyone on the same page: share files, allow multiple parties to revise a document, and maintain a record of ongoing discussions.

// Katie Boyd, intern

Keeping up with mobile

In the last few years, the mobile market has grown with a fury. Mobile is a disruptive technology, creating completely new ways for consumers to spend, and rapidly upending technologies we have been using for years (digital cameras, home computers, and books, to name a few). It is very young, and has only been in the hands of consumers for a few years. And it is truly gigantic – according to Phone Arena, smartphones outsold personal computers in 2011. So, as mobile technology continues to grow and develop, and simultaneously smash everything in its path, I can’t help but picture it as a giant toddler.

That combination of nascence and force can be more than a little frightening, especially for those of us in the web design field. Dave Hewitt’s recent article on TechCrunch does a great job of describing the challenges this new realm poses for media professionals. Here is an excerpt (Check out the whole article):

“This year, the market demands a more entrepreneurial mindset. Mobile is not just the hot topic of the moment — it’s the future. Embracing this reality requires a shift in thinking and many brands still do not have a mobile or encompassing digital strategy in place. Moreover, many agencies are still growing a set of basic mobile capabilities. Creating both smartphone and tablet-optimized experiences, along with the increasing need to pick platforms and develop apps, is becoming the norm.”

I believe that we have only begun to scratch to surface of how mobile capabilities can be employed. We are so used to waiting for technology to catch up to our impossible ideas.  Mobile has created a world where our ideas have trouble keeping up with technology.  To me, it appears that the biggest challenge facing agencies in the mobile era is simply learning how to dream bigger.

// Katie Boyd, intern