Tech: Web Apps Websites (by PCMAG.com)

These are our favorite new sites in the exploding category of Web applications.

Bubbl.us
This free Web application helps you organize your thoughts into easily readable and colorful mind maps to print or post online. Bubbl.us lets you interact with your team to pool and sort out your thoughts in a clean, crisp way that leaves the usual conference-room mishmash and endless e-mail threads behind.

Eyejot
Eyejot combines elements of e-mail, voice mail, and video chat into a single streamlined solution. The site lets you quickly and easily record a video message and e-mail a link to it. Friends can click on the link at their leisure to view your message and reply via their own video message. The whole thing is easy, free, and much more personal than stuffy old e-mail.

MediaFire
Media Fire is a free file-sharing and storage service that lets users upload unlimited files and images. What's even better is that the site doesn't require registration, so that's one less password/username combo to have knocking around in your head. After the easy file-upload process, you can access your data from any computer and post links to the files for sharing with family (and coworkers if you're using the site for work-related purposes).

Meebo
Why bother installing software for all your instant-messaging accounts? Use your most important application-your Web browser-to sign on to all of them at once. Meebo handles IMs on AIM, GoogleTalk, MSN, and Yahoo! networks, putting all your buddies and coworkers into a single master list. Sign up direct with Meebo, and it will access all four networks automatically without requiring a separate program.

Only2Clicks
If you're like most Web surfers, the majority of your Internet time is spent on a small handful of sites. Only2Clicks lets you set up a customized home page with instant access to these sites, along with previews of what's on their home pages. Yes, yes, we know that the Opera browser has this "speed-dial" feature built in, but for the huge majority of Web surfers who don't use Opera, Only2Clicks is a free and easy way to add this functionality to any browser.

Picnik
Editing your photos just got easier, thanks to Picnik. Upload a photo or import online photos from flickr, Picasa, and others; then real-time online manipulation tools let you crop, sharpen, adjust exposure and color, and more. Add some effects, such as doodles or infrared (try the "gooify" feature for some true wackiness), and then share them with your friends. A new Firefox extension adds an "Edit in Picnik" option to the right-click menu and lets you take screen-captures and edit them in Picnik.
Visit: www.picnik.com

Remember the Milk
Get organized with Remember the Milk, a handy online list-making app that makes your to-do list accessible from anywhere. Adding items to your list is as easy as sending an e-mail, and you can receive reminders via e-mail, IM, or text message.
Visit: www.rememberthemilk.com

Wetpaint
There's no question that wikis have revolutionized the way we consume information online. But for the most part, they've never really been particularly dynamic, either in terms of aesthetics and creation. Wetpaint makes the dream of good-looking, easy-to-create wikis a reality, and since it's a proper Web 2.0 site, you can bet dollars to donuts that it includes a social-networking component.
Visit: www.wetpaint.com

Zamzar
Before Zamzar, you had to download a utility-or two or three-to be able to convert file formats. But with Zamzar, you can convert anything-images, documents, and videos-and have it e-mailed to your inbox in four quick steps without downloading a thing. A new feature lets you convert files from URLs, which means you can save YouTube videos to your hard drive without breaking a sweat.
Visit: www.zamzar.com

Zoho
Zoho is throwing every application it can online to see what sticks. It's got the typical stuff (word processor, spreadsheet, and presentations) along with some distinctive items like the Zoho Creator database, a notebook, a Wiki, and a Web-based collaboration tool. Not all the modules are free (like the project manager and CRM tools), but all are exceptionally well done and kept fresh with new options and features-such as integration with your Facebook page.
Visit: www.zoho.com

The world of Web apps, sites that actually do things, is growing by leaps and bounds every day. Here are some of our tried-and-true favorites.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets
Much ink has been spilled by tech journos talking up Google Docs and how it will affect productivity software ("Microsoft is doomed!" and so on). But whether or not it ever supplants Microsoft Office, Google's online office software is handy, collaborative, and free. In fact, we used it for this very story.

Flickr
Whether you want to see your friends' pics of last night's party or professional images of a sunset over the Serengeti, Flickr's there for you. The user-generated photo site lets you document your life in photos for everyone to see, browse other users' photos, share pics with friends, and even get comments on your technique and composition from camera enthusiasts and photo hobbyists.

Google Maps
It's the spinning globe you always wanted, only onscreen with infinite detail. Google's fast maps get more features each year; you can literally drag a plotted route to create new directions or get a 360-degree street view in select cities. An open API for third-party applications and mashups is just icing on the cake.

Google Labs
Want to see what the geniuses at Google are up to? Google Labs is the proving ground for new Google apps and services, and is great for checking out the beta products Google has in the pipes. Some of the projects are quirky or half-baked, but enough brilliant apps are Google Labs grads that we'll continue to keep an eye on it.

Last.fm
Recently purchased by CBS, this social Web radio site is perhaps the best free music-discovery engine around. Last.fm combines music discovery with social networking, letting users generate their own radio stations based on artists, musical styles, era, instrumentation, and virtually any other criteria you can imagine. Download the Audioscrobbler, and the music you listen to in other players (like iTunes) will dictate your radio stations. If there's a better resource for feeding our chamber-jazz and Ghanaian-highlife obsessions, we've yet to find it.

Live Search Maps
Google may get all the map glory, but Microsoft's Virtual Earth tool keeps the battle for map innovation raging. Street maps and satellite images are almost old hat when you have bird's-eye views from multiple vantage points, plus 3D views that you can navigate like a flight simulation of the real world. Just be sure to use IE to get the 3D ActiveX control. The location finder pinpoints where you are if you have a Wi-Fi-enabled laptop.

Pandora
Developed by the creators of the Music Genome Project, Pandora reimagined the way that we think of Internet radio. Utilizing a song's traits, such as syncopation and tonality, the site generates individual radio stations based on users' favorite artists and songs. And new versions of Pandora for mobile phones and wireless home media hubs keep the site at the top of its game.

Yahoo! Mail (beta)
Though stripped-down freemail might be all the rage, Yahoo! goes in the opposite direction with its latest version of Yahoo! Mail. The service acts like a fast, responsive desktop application, with Outlook-like drag-and-drop navigation, and is stuffed with features. Some would call the enormous feature set "bloated," but it feels just right to us.

YouTube
The greatest time waster on a Web full of time wasters, YouTube is primarily therapy for the billions of bored people in the world. Secondarily, it's an online video app that lets users upload and view video content for free. YouTube's millions of videos contain everything from political debates to video blogs, seriousness to hilarity to stupidity.