ten web 2.0 services you shouldn't live without

GMail is a free, search-based webmail service that includes almost 3 GB of storage. The backbone of GMail is a powerful Google search engine that quickly finds any message an account owner has ever sent or received. That means there's no need to file messages in order to find them again. GMail also allows users to categorize and sort their messages with tags (called labels) that users can apply to their emails.

Perhaps the most unique features for GMail is the conversation view. GMail recognizes related messages, and groups them into 'conversations', where associated messages are listed one after another, with the newest messages at the top. If a conversation has more than approximately 100 messages, it splits it into separate sections. Other prominent features include options to forward emails to another address, POP3 access to other email addresses, and tight integration with Google Talk which allows you to chat right from your inbox.

Despite the myriad of features GMail retains a clean, fast, simple and intuitive interface. And although its still in beta (for the last three years) its easy to sign-up, all you need is an invite from an existing user (which is almost everyone).

Alternatives: Windows Live Mail, Yahoo! Mail (beta)

Flickr is a free photo-sharing website, owned by Yahoo!. Flickr gives you unlimited space to store your photos but with a 100MB upload limit. Flickr allows photo submitters to categorize their images by using 'tags', which allows searchers to easily find images concerning a certain topic. Flickr also allows users to categorize their photos into 'sets', or groups of photos that fall into the same topic.

Organizing photos in Flickr can be done using Organizr, a web-application that allows efficient editing for a large number of photos. Flickr allows you to select whether you want you photo to be public or private. Private photos cannot be viewed by anyone except those you allow, you could also share private photos with non-Flickr users by emailing them a guest pass.

Flickr is home to some of the most experience professional photographers and some of the most creative amateurs, and you can spend hours browsing through all kinds of amazing photos. Flickr showcases some of these great photos in what they like to call 'interestingness'. There are also lots of group photo pools where amazing photographs pertaining to a certain category are showcased. Limitations for free accounts include a 100MB upload limit, and the ability to edit photos you uploaded only extends to the most recent 200 photos. Older photos can be still accessed. These limitations can be removed by upgrading to a Pro account.

Alternatives: Zooomr, Smugmug

Wikipedia is a community-collaborated web-based free-content encyclopedia. Because Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers, its articles can be edited by almost anyone with access to the Web site. Wikipedia has articles on almost any conceivable topic and has over 250 language editions of Wikipedia, 19 of which has more than 50,000 articles, with the English version having over 1.5 million articles.

Wikipedia has seen exponential growth over the past few years and has been the target of criticism over its reliability and accuracy. Some take advantage of Wikipedia's openness to add nonsense to the encyclopedia, which is called 'vandalism'. Genuine contribution are also sometimes deemed as biased, unconfirmed and questionable. Most articles however cite sources, and have a good standing.

Despite its flaws, Wikipedia, with its group of editors and dedicated users, strives to maintain its high-quality, accuracy, making it a reliable source of knowledge.

Alternative: None!

del.icio.us is a social bookmarking service for storing, sharing and discovering bookmarks. del.icio.us allows users to 'tag' their bookmarks, which is then used for search or sorting bookmarks. Bookmarks can be made private, although it is discouraged, since sharing is an important part of the service.

del.icio.us can be used with bookmarklets for IE or with an extension for Firefox. Clicking the 'Bookmark This Page!'button brings a up a windows where you can edit the page's title and URL, add a description, and add tags (Recommended tags are provided). All public bookmarks can be viewed by anyone, with the most popular (currently) and the most recent bookmarks being featured on the front page.

Bookmarks can also be searched, or sorted by tags and/or users.del.icio.us allows you to store and manage large volumes of bookmarks, but you'll probably spend most of the time discovering cool new articles, services, and websites that others bookmarked.

Alternatives: Blinklist, Ma.gnolia, Simpy, Furl, Spurl, Blue Dot

Netvibes is a AJAX-based start page, It can be organized into tabs, with each tab containing

user-defined modules, such as RSS/Atom feeds, iCal calendars, Notes, Web Search, Weather Forecasts, and other specific service oriented ones.

Netvibes search modules are the most useful features, you have separate modules for Web, Images, Video, Podcasts, and Blogs, and have the options to select which search service to use, like Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Windows Live, Flickr, Zooomr, Youtube, Dailymotion, Technorati, and lots more. Not only are the search results displayed within the modules, you can search in all modules at once using the search box at the top. You also have the option to check your POP3 Email account (including Hotmail, GMail, and Yahoo! accounts) and you can chat with your friends using the Meebo module.

Netvibes has, what they call the Netvibes EcoSystem, which is a directory of mostly user-created modules, tabs and pages, this gives the users a large option to choose from. Netvibes is also a rapidly evolving product that introducing new features frequently and makes a great homepage.

Alternatives: Plageflakes, Google Personalized Homepage, Windows Live, Protopage

Last.fm is a social music recommendation service and internet radio. Last.fm can be used to look up information about an artist or band, album, or songs, and similar songs and artists are listened as well. You can also see which songs are the most popular for a certain band or album.

Personalized recommendation are given based on the songs you like. You can add your favorite songs manually, or use their audioscrobbler plugin to automatically build up your profile as you listen to music. Based on your musical preference you can listen to their online radio.

Alternatives: Pandora

Digg is a community-based website that combines social bookmarking, and news syndication with a democratic editorial control. News stories and websites are submitted by users, others who find the story interesting 'Digg' it. When a story receives enough 'Diggs' it is promoted to the frontpage.

Users can report duplicate or spam submissions, which when reported by enough users are deleted.Users also comment on the stories, with popular or controversial stories ending up having a long and heated debate. All-in-all Digg can be a great place to find out about recent events.

Alternatives: Shoutwire, Slashdot, Netscape

YouTube is a popular video-sharing website which lets users upload, view, and share video clips. YouTube's official policy prohibits submission of copyrighted material, however various companies such as NBC and CBS allows videoclips from their shows to gain publicity. YouTube also has made deals with Warner Music Group and EMI to host music videos produced by them.

A large number of videos on YouTube are homemade ones, some of whom have also grown to prominence on the basis of their appearance in YouTube videos. You can spend hours going through some of the funniest videos, and find a lot of undiscovered talent on YouTube.

Alternatives: Dailymotion, Google Videos, MSN Soapbox

Meebo is a browser-based instant messaging program that allows you to sign into multiple multiple IM services including Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, AIM and ICQ. Meebo makes instant messaging services more accessible to users who are unable or unwilling to download the appropriate software.

Users can also create a Meebo account and use it to login to all their IM accounts, as well as gain the ability to save chat logs. Users also have the ability to log in as invisible.

Alternatives: eBuddy, Mabber

Zoho Writer is a web-based word processing application. It has a great WYSIWYG editing interface with excellent image import and manipulation features. It can import Microsoft Word (DOC), OpenOffice text (ODT and SXW), HTML, RTF, JPG, GIF and PNG files and can save as PDF, DOC, ODT, SXW, RTF, HTML and text files. Multiple versions of any document can be saved.

Zoho Writer also allows a group of editors to collaboratively edit a document in real-time, and also allows you to publicly or privately share documents. Blogger can also post to Wordpress, Typepad, LiveJournal, and Blogger blogs directly from Zoho Writer.

Alternatives: ThinkFree Office, Google Docs and Spreadsheets