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Here, you will find my page of favorite, and mostly free, Web Essentials. All tested, and all used either on my sites, or those designed for others. Where applicable, you will find links to both my “review” and the developer’s site:

Swicki: Get (build) your own search portal for your blog or site from Eurekster. I remember when these guys introduced Swicki way back in 2004, I think, long before the social networking thing, and thought this was ahead of it’s time. No more, as this is actually a perfect tool for use in social/community oriented environments. Quickly put, say you have a group interested in “Disney Animation.” Customize your widget around this by adding a tag cloud, publish to your site, and your members will make good use of the resource. Your Swicki can search the full web for results, or only the site(s) you designate. It operates “passively,” so, the more it gets used, the smarter it gets in finding things. The ensuing search page is headed by the name of your Swicki, so – free promotion for you, bonus! The swicki below is the standard, text version, and Swickis are also available for videos, displayng cool vid tiles, or a pro (no ad) version – best for corporate or larger users. As far as I know, you can build and use however many Swickis it takes to make you happy. Two thumbs up here.

Grab this swicki from eurekster.com Heyzap: Games. Games as an essential? Well, “all work, and no play…” But, seriously, if you think sbout it, games are a form of content, and fresh content is needed to drive traffic to your site, so, I say, why not. Plus, quality game developers are all too happy to promote the existence of their game on your site, so, a plus is a linking opportunity. Heyzap, still in beta, claims availability of 6,000+ games, with developers ever growing the toy chest. You can embed as shown, or add this as a widget to your site, both with some customization. If you get stuck, plenty of hospitable human support from Heyzap founder Jude Gomila is offered. This is to be ad supported with no current info, and could get out of control with conflicts and clutter in ads between marketers and game developers. Also, if this moves to a “pay-to-play” business model, well, “if the glove doesn’t fit…”


heyzap.com – free online games

Cooliris: They say; “Meet your browser’s best friend.” I now feel stiffed by my browser, but this is pretty cool. Basically, these folks make software products such as this “wall” below to enhance your browsing experience. (This “Wall” does not do justice to the full features of these products, but gives you the idea). CoolPreviews is a browser plugin that opens a preview of the underlying content of a web link when mouse hovered. Cooliris, also a web browser plugin that provides interactive full-screen slideshows of online images and videos from many suppported sites or ones which use mediaRSS tags in their HTML pages. This is “client-side” stuff, which means you can enable your site or blog fairly easily, and I plan to get around to doing just that, as soon as I get around to playing with my PHP files. This software is a “keeper” in my book!

Banner Builder by Cashusin.com. Make Animated .gifs

doXtop. Create and/or publish your documents in embedable PDF or Flash and build, join and share with social networks. (Example Below:)

Sazell:
Their product “Snap the Web” allows you to share and discover stuff; videos, music, photos, events, news, blogs, maps or anything on the web by transforming large chunks of info into bite-sized visual widgets called “Snapshots,” like these below. Great promotion/networking opportunity inherent with this. Clean and easy to use.

Dumpr

Says it’s “the coolest place on the internet for digital photography hobbyists.” Well, yes, they do have a cool factor going on over there, def worth the price of admission – fast, free registration. Another “social networking” community, but I’m a sucker to sign up for any that rewards my time. With Dumpr, you can transform your pics to a variety of cool scenes, puzzles, sketches, etc., and share with friends via email, other networking sites, or just copy and use the html provided along with your “art.” Simply upload from your computer or interface with your files over at Flickr. This is fun, and props to the developers.