Top FREE Online Technology Tools and Services for Your Business - 2009
Last year around this time, I created a Blog post with links to the "Top 200+ FREE Sites and Tools" for your Business. Hard to believe that was a year ago. This year is focused on some sites and tools I actually use more frequently, and think you might too. There are so many great sites that offer some fantastic services, it's a challenge to keep up with all of them, and try to tell you which ones are the best. You could spend more time learning and playing on the computer than actually getting your work done. (so be careful if you check out my top 200 from last year..)
With that in mind, I tried to focus these "Top Sites" on things you can actually use and apply to your business. For every site and service I mention here, there are probably 4 or 5 others that offer the same type of tools or service, and that's not to say they aren't fantastic, these are just my selected choices to share. The slide-show below (using slideshare.net) has the name of the site, a quick overview of each one, then a link to their site using their logo. Some of these you will have heard of, and might even be using already.
You can download a copy of this from Box.net, a great site to store and share files with others. If you've come across some great sites, on-line tools, or FREE services yourself this year, and you'd like to share them here, feel free to do so. On many occasions, I have found some of the best stuff by just reading Blog comments on others posts.
In these tighter economic times, I hope some of these sites and tools will help save you some money, time, and contribute to improving your Blogs, Websites, and Service to your clients. Enjoy! :-)
Brad, awesome list! Some I hadn't seen before - exciting!
Thanks Jo - these really are some great sites and services. The Top 200 I did last year got a lot of hits and comments, but it took forever to do, and was a bit overwhelming for myself and others. Glad you liked this condensed list. See ya next week. :-))
Thanks, Brad. I am heading in to look at the list. How was the Tech Fair?
Hi, Brad. I am fairly new to Active Rain and I missed your last year's list so I will go and read it. Thanks so much for all the information!
Jane - the MLS Tech Fair in NY was great! Very informative. I was actually inspired to do this list while I was there.
Leslie - hope you like it, there's a lot of great sites on that list too. :-)
Thank you, this is a great list.
Free is always one of the best words you could say! I'll have to implement a few things that I'm not.
Brad,
Another good list. Some of these I knew about and some were new. All in all very helpful.
Thank you Brad! I learned a lot from last year's list and did pick a few sites that I have continued to use. I will spend a bit of time each week trying out the ones on this list and I'm sure some of them will wind up in my toolbox too. Meanwhile I'll reblog this post to get the word out (and so I can refer back to it over and over easily). ;-)
Hello Brad, thanks again for Free and Effective on-line tools we can use. YDM John
Great resource. Thanks for the post.
Miranda
Very cool information. Thank you for sharing these with us Brad. My favorites are the Conference Call and the Banners. I'll probably check out a few others still.
Wow Brad, I try to stay up on the latest sites but I made a list of several that I haven't even heard of yet. Thanks for the tips and the new tools to play with :)
Brad - how long does it take to learn all this stuff? Never mind that....how long does it take to learn ABOUT all this stuff? I'm excited I know how to use Picnik, but I'm hyperventilating over the fact I don't really know much about the other 24! So I'm bookmarking this post and will come back after I have found some brown paper bags to breathe into.
Brad - I love free adn I love this post. What a gift! How can I say thank you enough!!
Jeff
Brad, you've always been and will alway be "The Man". Thanks for always sharing. I hope to get to meet you NAR Convention this year!
Oh Darn - I just noticed this slide show is missing the last two slides, "Social Media Networks" and "The 200 Links" slide... I must have broke it. (I do that to these sites ya know...lol) I'm what they refer to as a power-user! haha~
I'll try to fix it when I get back from REBarCamp in Silicon Valley tomorrow. Otherwise it will have to wait till I return from the Seattle RainCamp. In the meantime, if you want to see the full slideshow presentation, just CLICK HERE for all 25 slides. Sorry about that.
Uh oh, Brad. I have a feeling I'm really gonna like this. Gotta bookmark it and find enough time to go through this. You are the best! This is what I love so much about AR. Besides being a platform to help our business, we can learn so much from folks like yourself and others who have vast experience and know how. I am truly grateful.
Thanks Brad Already see two I plan to look into and a few more that would be of use. Have a good week.
Brad, I love new tech tools and the best way to find them is through "referral" -- thanks for referring us to them. I look forward to playing
Brad - Another great post to bookmark. I like the fact you used Slideshare.net to host and display the presentation. I have found some great content searching through Slideshare's database...
Great content! Thanks Brad.
Not only was that valuable info, Brad, it was great to see how well Slideshare.net worked to present the info. Much appreciated!
Hi Brad! The free conference call will be very helpful as I've been looking for a service like that. With my style of Flat Fee MLS, it would be great to talk to lots of people at once, and they could have a strategy session to brainstorm ideas for marketing.
I've spent a few hours last night setting up my profile for ActiveRain and found your tutorials most helpful. Thanks for your advice!
By the way, can you tell me why my pic isn't showing up on the comments I leave?
Thank you Brad! Can't wait to spend some time on each of these sites! You are a wealth of information and greatly appreciated.
Good list and good tools. I use a lot of them already. If it is for free it is for me!
Good list...thank you! It is always nice to find "free" tools available.
Hi Brad,
I've found a few free sites that I'll share. I've started a Monthly Tech Update for some of my Close Realtor Partners, which here are a few of the Free Sites that I've found:
Weebly.com: You can create your own website and host it for free, or upgrade with a minimal cost.
Tubemogul.com: Upload your video here and it will send it out to at least 2 different video sharing sites (great for viral marketing).
Eyejot.com: Create video e-mails or video conferencing. No Downloads (personally, I believe it's better than Skype).
YouSendIt.com: Great tool to send large files over the internet. Basically, you upload the file to an online storage and it e-mails the recipient with a link to the upload.
Hopefully, you and everyone else find these helpful.
Best wishes,
Mike Bjork
I use many of these sites, but there are a few I've never heard of. 200 sites would be overwhelming for the list builder as well as the reader. This list is just right. Thanks!
Brad,
FREE. I'm interested. Just quickly went through it and there are plenty of terrific ones. Need to set aside some time to really dig into them. Thanx.
Thanks for this great list of tools Brad. Excellent really.
Hey Brad, thanks for keeping us up todate with the latest and greatest.
Bookmarked!!! I'll add this to my weekly reading/investigation assignment. Whew....I can't keep up!
Great site! I signed up for some of the tools you recommended! I love new technology
Somehow I'm disappointed when a post is simply a video. I'd love to have a list that I can actually refer back to. I'll have to come back later to watch the video unless you'd kindly enumerate the items mentioned!
Thanks Brad. I wish I could be in Seattle tomorrow. Have a great time.
Thanks for all the great new sites/tools to explore! I really appreciate it!
Brad, Thanks for all the sites and tools to check out. I only knew of 4 of them! I cannot imagine wanting to look at a list of 200. It may take me a year to have time start using all of these.
Sharing the information is amazing. The thoughtful way in which you present it and one can feel your true concern and your honest care is just remarkable. Thank you, Brad, with the most gratitude!
There are a lot of these that I haven't heard of. If you could only pick five, which ones would they be?
Jenny - this isactually a slideshow, not a video. Each page of the slide show has a link to each site. You can also download this list from Box.net, there is a link up in the post. Last year I did do a list, but this year I needed it for a presentation, that's why I used this format instead.
John - that would be tough, I don't think I could! :-)
Thank you, thank you, thank you! The hard thing I find is choosing the right tools. I love slide share.
This is certainly a breath of fresh air considering all the expenses now days in Real Estate. Thanks for taking the time to compile a list for us!
Perfect. Thanks for the info, several sites I had not seen.
Richard
Thanks! That was a great reminder to re-visit some of the things i had put off investigating. There were quite a few i'd forgotten about so thanks for the reminder!
Can't wait to review your list of tools, and thanks for adding info on how to use.
Thanks for the help yesterday Brad. They got my Hit Router up and running.
Brad, once again thanks for sharing and always looking out for ways for us to save money. I am grateful I found Activerain and I'm glad you did also, because with all the freebies you and other Activerain members have shared with me over the past 2 and 1/2 years, I'm guessing I've probably saved close to $100,000!
Brad, wow, what a collection. I'm glad I have my AR toolbox. With all of these new tools, I can't think of a better place to use them! LOL.
Thanks again for all of your suggestions.
Hey Brad hope you are well. I will have to check out your list when I get a minute. I have been buried which is great!
holy cow... this is a treasure trove of information..thank you :)
This is awesome Brad! Thanks for the post!!
Glad you enjoyed it Konnie and Gregory, I hope it will help your business, even if in just some small way. :-)
Good deal, the day after raincamp I was sitting at my computer exploring these new free tools totally awesome.
Regarding Tubemoguel that mike mentioned, I had some problems with it not wanting to mass upload to all the video hosting services like youtube, vimeo, viddler etc. So go try it out and let me know if it is working for you guys.
Someone mentioned this at raincamp and said they would post it and haven't seen it yet.
GIMP: Free version of Adobe Photo shop, there is a learning curve, yes there a manual online, just google it and down load. Works great.
Cheers!
Chris - I have used tubemogul, but don't frequently. I scatter my videos around on viddler, vimeo, wellcomeMatt and Youtube etc, but mostly youtube. Thanks for the Photo Shop tip, I remember someone mentioning that during this presentation, I'll be checking that one out for sure.
Lots of valuable information here. I have bookmarked it for later use. Thanks for sharing with us! Love technology