I started this list when I spoke to students at a high school journalism conference on how it is possible to do everything you need as a journalist or storyteller by using free products. Since then, this list continues to grow! It can be helpful for anyone trying to do good work on a tight budget.Most recent update: October 17, 2013
(Click here you're looking for Twitter Tips)
Blog/Website
Weebly - A free website building tool Yola - Another free website building tool Jimdo - Another free website building tool Google Sites - A free website building tool Wix - A free website building tool using Flash (The site just announced HTML5 sites) Blogger - Simple way to blog WordPress - A blog and static webpage product MovableType - A downloadable blog system Blogsome - More blogging Livejournal - Blogging with a social community Posterous - A simple way to share thoughts and links Tumblr - A microblog that can be used as a full blown blog if you want Kompozer - A web design tool that does a lot of things Dreamweaver does (but for free) SquareSpace - $12/month hosting fee
Audio Editing/Podcasting
Audacity - Free audio editing tool (Version 2.0 was recently released.) WP Audio Player - A WordPress plug in you can use to embed audio into your website (you need server space). Mindy McAdams created a tutorial on how to make that work. SoundCloud - After talking to a rep from this company, their goal is to become the YouTube of audio.
Video Sharing/Editing
YouTube - Everyone uses it and it's available for use on WordPress.com. You can create a channel for your content. YouTube also recently released an in-site simple video editor. Vimeo - Beautiful, clean video player, works on Wordpress.com, you can also create channels Photobucket - Free place to store video or video Flickr - Free for a limited amount of monthly uploads of photos and videos Viddler - Nice video player and you can comment on the video Tubemogul - Upload your video EVERYWHERE!
Video Streaming
Livestream - A popular streaming service. You can create simple and highly produced streams inside this tool. Justin.tv - One of the first free streaming services Ustream - Another popular and reliable multi-camera tool Blip.tv - Another nice option for streaming video
Video Conversion
MPEG Streamclip Prism Handbrake (for Macs) WinFF (for PCs) ffmpegx (for Macs)
MediaFork (DVD to MP4 for Macs)
Zamzar - an online conversion tool that will convert almost anything
KeepVid - download video from sites like YouTube
Photo Sharing/Editing
Flickr - Professional storage and free editing tool (size limit) - has a social community Photobucket - Free place to store photos Picasa - Photo storage (works directly with Blogger and all other Google Tools) and photo editing Photoshop Express - Just like Photoshop image editing but online (up to 2 gigs) PicMonkey - Former employees of Picnik created this awesome, simple tool Pixlr - A multi-faceted online photo editing site
Mashable created this page with even more photo editors.
Multimedia
Vuvox - Create a multimedia collage and embed it to your site. SlideDeck - Create a deck of images, videos and more. (for Wordpress) Prezi - Create a dynamic presentation that can include multimedia and embed into your site. Storify - Curate social media discussions along whatever topics or categories you can imagine. Timeline - Free multimedia timeline tool created through Knight Foundation funding Facebook Timeline - Newsrooms can create a timeline of its history or of stories it covered on Facebook. Here are details on how newsrooms are using Facebook Timeline apps. (By the way, all pages must switch to Timeline on March 30th.) Scribd - Embed docs and pdfs on your website DocumentCloud - Embed docs with annotations Slideshare - embed powerpoint or keynote presentations
Document Sharing/Collaborating
Google Documents - Create content and work on it from anywhere with Internet. Good for collaborating. Basecamp - Collaborate content, deadlines, messages and content. Basic version is free. Google Groups - Collaborate content, deadlines, messages and content. Dropbox - 2 gigs are free to share, 50 gigs are $9.99/month
Social Networking
Twitter- A microblog that lets you connect socially and share links and information in a concise way Twhirl - A tool that lets you Twitter with more than one account Twitter Search - Follow Twitter themes by searching keywords MySpace - Old school social networking Facebook - Many opportunities to promote your news product here Tumblr - To me, this is an eye candy version of Twitter with a smaller and at times more engaged community. If you are curious how a newsroom can use it, check out this tutorial by Matthew Keys. Google+ - Google's newest social media network that is slowly evolving into a social wrapped around all of the Google apps. (You can read my primer here.) Pinterest - More and more newsrooms are finding creative ways to use this popular network with news content
Twitter/Facebook/G+ Tools
Advanced Twitter Search - Twitter's search. Make sure you do an advanced search to help search geo-located tweets. Facebook Search - the company is expanding how its search works. Keep an eye on additional geo-location features coming soon. Twitter Local - Take a look at tweets in your area (or a specific area of your choice) Trendsmap - A map that locates trend topics. (This is super cool.) Twitaholic - Gives rankings and analyzes Twitter use TweetStats - Learn about a Twitter user's statistics Twittercounter - More Twitter statistics Hashtags - Follow hashtag trends and learn more about the technique (Consider joining #wjchat weekly on Wednesdays at 5pm PT/8pm ET) ContextMiner - Try to analyze context out of multiple social media tools The Archivist - Another Twitter archive tool for PC's WhatTheTrend - Learn about the trends behind the terms (but the trend definitions are not always correct) Suggested Circles - A way to search public options based on Google+ profiles. Circle Count - Learn and search users inside Google+ Twylah - Make a brand page for your tweets
Social Media Management Tools
Tweetdeck - This is often the tool that helps new users of Twitter "get" it. I highly recommend creating an account here and searching through hashtags and search terms. Hootsuite - There is a free version but it costs to have a large number of people manage the same account for Twitter and Facebook pages. Seesmic - Manage multiple accounts from your computer or phone. There is a web, desktop and phone version. SocialFlow - A tool that helps you manage your message and keep an eye on engagement. bit.ly - A handy way to shorten links and keep an eye on click analytics Buffer - Another tool to help you manage and schedule tweets. Chartbeat - Basic account to watch live activity on your website is $10/month Google Analytics - a free site analytics tool
Live Moderated Chats Coveritlive - This is an embeddable tool where you can moderate a conversation and it's free! Scribblelive - There is a 30 day free trial... But you have to pay after that.
Social Link Sharing Digg - Share links and discuss del.icio.us - Bookmark and share links StumbleUpon - Discover links that fit your interest Reddit - User-generated collection of links
Content Management Systems (let's get complicated here) Django - many newspaper websites are built on this open source system Drupal - many other news and information sites are built using this open source system Joomla - another powerful open source CMS that is used by many news and information organizations. Wordpress.org - This is a bit different from Wordpress.com because you run it on your personal server space. This lets you use the Wordpress tools without as many restrictions about what kind of content you post or which themes you want to use.
Mobile Tools The Reynolds Journalism Institute has this great Mobile Journalism Reporting Tools Guide that was put together by Will Sullivan and a team of students during his 2010-11 fellowship.
Check out this incredible visual display of social networks and what they do.
Additional Lists Poynter's NewsU site has a great collection of digital tools.
Feel free to email me more links and ideas: jenleereeves (at) gmail (dot) com or @jenleereeves on Twitter.