Author: Tiara Rea

Everyone was so welcoming about my two cents on the Web 2.0 craze that I thought I’d offer some further opinions on the subject. While I think the biggest part of my own excitement about Web 2.0 is that it should mean whatever Web 3.0 is will really blow me away, I also think that the community aspect of the buzzword gets overlooked a little too frequently. While most people exploit the idea of Web 2.0 as some new fad that is ultimately capitalized upon by cheaters who think digging themselves will give them higher PR, I think the main facet of Web 2.0 is its driving sense of community and sharing. It can either be a great way to make yourself famous via word-of-mouth type referrals, or it can be your gateway to what’s new, what’s cool, and what’s trendsetting in the world around you.

This month, instead of furthering my own opinions entirely, I’d like to take a moment to applaud three sites I think are really running with Web 2.0 in a good way and also adding some new elements to the mix. I hope you enjoy them and discover a new way to build a different kind of community!

I discovered this gem late last year as I was casually browsing the internet. Stumbling into the community headlong, I was really amazed at the ingenuity of the idea itself – the Best Stuff is, simply put, a place to tell the world what you think is the best. Whether you think your coffeeshop down the block is the best place to sit and relax or you think the South Park is the greatest animated television show in the history of TV, you can describe what’s the best in your life and disagree with others who may disagree with you.

I think the best part about BestStuff, though, is that it is a real community, which grows every day in its unique collaboration. It’s the kind of group where you could be a casual browser like me one moment and then the next have posted 10 new categories for your Best Stuff and discovered that there may be something better than what you’re into now. From music and movies to food, countries, anime, shoes, places, and objects to your own personal best stuff, BSITW is a great tool for discovery and community.

What street? Precisely my thoughts when I first discovered Amie Street’s music community about a year ago. There are thousands upon thousands of indie music websites out there that you could search for, and all of them tend to offer the same thing – music without connection.

What Amie Street attempts to do is connect the fans directly to the artists and then the artists and fans directly to the community by including a Digg-style approach to unsigned bands and indie music. Instead of simply plugging yourself in and downloading an album for $15, Amie Street allows you to purchase brand new music from unsigned but very talented artists from all walks of life. The more popular the artist’s music grows, the more you’ll have to pay to download it, but you’ll never pay more than 99 cents per song and the community votes on the artist’s popularity so there’s no arbitrary clique contests you have to fight your way into. The best part is that Amie Street rewards listeners and fans for recommending new music to the community by offering commissions when you recommend songs! With one click, you can discover a new band, recommend your favorite unheard music, and make money when other people download it. As the price of each song goes up, so does the money in your account.

Plus, as a musician myself, it’s a great place to put my music up and let the world hear…for a small price. Amie Street also offers musicians a place to post a bio, upload their music for free, include CD art, and more. Your songs may start out free, but if you’ve got talent or a heck of a lot of fans, you can make some serious cash as your songs rise in price.

So if you’re looking for a great community to discover all kinds of new music (from pop to rock to jazz to rap to country, etc), give Amie Street a shot and you won’t be disappointed!

Okay, I saved the best for last, because I have actively been using ClipClip for over a year and I’m still not tired of it – in fact, I think I love it more now than I did when I first started messing with it. Earlier this year I declared myself the ClipClip Ambassador, because I really believe in the little app that changed how I bookmark.

ClipClip is, essentially, a social bookmarking tool that allows you to save and collect the sites and stuff you treasure most. Like other social bookmarking sites, it allows you to create subjects, post information, and tag the stuff you bookmark for convenience. But unlike early bookmarking sites, ClipClip allows for one further step in development – you can ‘clip’ pictures, applications, and paragraphs without having to take from the whole website itself.

ClipClip works, more or less, as your own personal scrapbook – in my ClipClip folders I have images I’m fond of, web hosting articles I think are cool, and snippits from various pages on everything from Web 2.0 to the iPhone to search results in Google. The best part is that how you clip it is how you see it – forever! That means while the look of a site may change or alter in the future, you have preserved a piece of it in your ClipClip folders. Funny enough, I clipped my first AmieStreet sale on ClipClip, used it to keep track of things for work, and also organized favorite images there for future artistic references.

Well, these are just three of the great Web 2.0 tools you can find online, and three of my favorites at that! Check them out and comment if you’d like. I’d love to hear your examples of the best in Web 2.0 and your experience using the sites I mentioned above

This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 2:06 pm and is filed under Featured Articles, Issue 2 - September 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed . Both comments and pings are currently closed.