Are you using Web 2.0 Tools in your newsroom?

Whatever Web 2.0 means to you, I have realized in the past year that it means speed, convenience and accessibility for reporting. I can post and move all kinds of content from any computer in any cybercafe in whatever country or from my mobile device (that mini-me I call my "crackberry"). I can just as quickly distribute this content online, using social networking tools such as Facebook, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Digg, Technorati, MySpace. None of it costs a cent.

The number of free online tools that can be used to create video, audio and text, manage content and distribute it online can be daunting and even mind-numbing for any journalist who tries to keep up. While I enjoy finding and using these tools (it's similar to scouring thrift stores), many reporters wonder which are actually useful.

It's not easy to determine, because every newsroom is different. If you're here looking for the "must haves" for every newsroom, I'm sorry to disappoint. A certain amount of experimenting goes into finding out what works in your newsroom and what needs to remain in the realm of the free and the useless.

An easy way to find out what other journalists find useful is to ask them and compare notes. Tools, unlike stories, cannot be "scooped," and most reporters like to share tools that make their lives easier, while also looking smart and hip. Also, remember tools are just tools and can be largely defined whoever uses them.

The tools that see the most use in our newsroom have a specific purpose. Some of these we stumbled upon, others were recommended by other editors or reporters. We have posted a video introducing some of these tools if you want to check them out but don't want to commit to another login:

Our favorite tools from 2007 (in no particular order) are:

Google Docs. Our intern, Will Pomart, introduced us to Google Docs a year ago as a way to streamline our editorial process -- creating, submitting and editing of documents -- and took Microsoft Office completely out of the picture. In Google Docs you can create documents, spreadsheets and presentations, share them, and invite collaborators from your news team to edit or add content. All you need is a Gmail account and a browser. My favorite feature: You can see when someone is editing your document and watch the changes in real time without having to shoot e-mails back and forth. You also don't have to worry about saving an earlier draft because Google Docs auto-saves all previous versions. Although we've only been using it a few months, most of our columnists, feature writers, editors and copy editors are now using it and, yes, like it. See how Maynard uses Google Docs in this video.

Wayback Machine. A few weeks back I pasted the wrong HTML code into our home page and saved it -- making our entire Web page a mess of code. We had no archived copy of our site and I was scrambling to put it back together until I found the Wayback Machine, an Internet archive created by a nonprofit organization to preserve Web sites by taking regular "snapshots." The Wayback Machine provides links to older versions of a Web page: In our case, all I had to do was enter our URL and I was able to rebuild our main page from the most recent archive, in August 2007. One of the most useful functions is to look up your favorite news sites (including your own) and see how other sites' Web pages have changed over the years. It's a great way to rethink your Web site and refresh your memory about elements that worked or didn't work so well on your Web site.

Jott. I heard about Jott months ago when the San Francisco Bay Area's KCBS (740 AM) did a quick story on it, and I was in the car e-mailing work from my crackberry. Soon after I heard a story about how many drivers have accidents while texting -- oops! I decided to try Jott when I got back to the office and since then I've been using it to e-mail people without having to look away from the steering wheel. It's incredibly easy to use and works like a regular call. You put in Jott's 1-800 number, say whom you're sending your message to and then say your message aloud. You can then prompt Jott to send your message like a regular e-mail or text. The biggest hassles are entering all your contacts and dealing with bad syntax if the software doesn't clearly recognize what you're saying. I also realized that it doesn't work with Spanish messages. You can use Jott to update any blog on your newsroom's site, receive news alerts or traffic reports from citizens, and post immediate content. Of course, you do have to correct misspellings, but Jott is a convenient tool for your's newsroom staff and your site's users.

Facebook. No, it's not just for college kids anymore, no more than MySpace is for bands. Once Facebook opened its platform last year and the applications came rolling in, Facebook became a valuable social networking space for journalists. Journalists can find story ideas and sources, join groups to share newsgathering ideas, and keep track of other news using applications found within Facebook such as Google News, BBC and NPR. You can also subscribe to friends' mini-feeds and add widgets, small applications or little bits of code made from friends' or colleagues' blogs.

Now whether I'm posting photos to Facebook from my mobile phone, sharing articles or new content from our site using my work computer, or sharing notes from my laptop while at a conference, Facebook is my favorite tool. One reason: I can use the mini-news feed (friends can subscribe to it) or micro-blogging tool to let others know about my recent stories, new content on our site and stories I'm tracking. Some mornings I check Facebook even before my e-mail.

Widgetbox. If you're like most journalists I know, you don't think of yourself as a developer or programmer, not even an accidental one. You marvel at the fine art of developing creative applications for sites like Facebook, but feel too unskilled and overwhelmed with stories to create your own. But Widgetbox demystifies the process, providing a step-by-step wizard that helps you create a widget, Facebook application or blidget (a tool that quickly creates a widget from your blog). Randy Keith, online editorial director at the San Jose Mercury News, which is rethinking its entire newsroom, tipped me to this handy tool. I was able to make a blidget of Dori Maynard's blog within 45 minutes and upload it to Facebook, where it updates live. This is no small thing when you consider the typical Facebook logs into their account in the morning and leaves it on all day.

But why would you make a blidget for your journalism? The reason, Keith says, is to push your content out and make it convenient for readers to see.

"We need to distribute our content in every possible way we can," Keith said. "Increasingly, the core site is not going to be the place where people are going to come into contact with Mercury News stories, videos or blog posts. It will be things like people sharing things on Facebook and sharing it on other applications or sites."

The Mercury News now has a few dozen blidgets, including their Good Morning Silicon Valley blog which has more than 100,000 members. But it's a pioneering spirit rather than revenue potential that drives this experiment. "Our intention wasn't to try to drive traffic or to promote it. This particular thing is spreading our journalism. It's another newsstand," Keith said. "It's delivering one section of the paper. If we get 150 people looking at Barry Bond's indictment feature, is that worth the time I spend building it? Maybe not, but over time you can see 150 here or 150 there and pretty soon it takes off like a rocket."

More importantly, it's convenient. "We want to be about all about convenience, if you want news about your community, then it should be right there," Keith said.

Please let us know what Web 2.0 tools you use in your newsroom and we'll add them to our column! Kara Andrade is an online strategist and news editor for the Maynard Institute.