Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Choosy Teachers Choose Gliffy (My apologies to a certain peanut butter company!)

While working on a web 2.0 presentation for a graduate class I am taking, I stumbled on a web 2.0 site called gliffy. Gliffy allows users to draw and share diagrams on the web. Users can save their work to gliffy's server or download it to their computer. There is a wide variety of diagrams that can be created at this site such as flow charts, floor plans, and technical drawings. I used gliffy to create a flow chart for my upcoming presentation.

I like to think of gliffy as a scaled-down (and free) version of Inspiration. In my opinion, however, gliffy has two major advantages over Inspiration: cost and convenience. A 20-pack license for Inspiration would cost my school approximately $700 and would be limited to the 20 laptops on our mobile cart. Students would have to buy the program if they wanted to work on their projects at home. Gliffy, on the other hand, is free and can be used on any computer connected to the web. It's not hard to see which option most cash-strapped schools would take.

Gliffy is a great example of a web application. I think that these type of applications will cause many traditional software companies to take a look at how they do business. Why purchase Microsoft Office when you can use Google Apps. for free?

Here are some other web 2.0 applications that you might want to look at:
  • ZOHO Show: Allows users to create and share presentations online. Watch out PowerPoint! You might also want to take a look at the other ZOHO products.
  • Writeboard: This is an online word processor that allows users to write solo or collaborate with others. Watch out Microsoft Word!
  • Create A Graph: This is a kid friendly site (which means I can use it!) that allows users to create a wide variety of graphs. It even offers an easy tutorial to help you create your graph.
I have shared a few of my favorite web 2.0 sites with you and now it is your turn. What are some of your favorite sites? Please leave a comment and let me know.

3 comments:

Marcia said...

Hi Brad,

Your blog was referenced on the gliffy website ... cool. thanks for the info on the other web 2.0 apps.

The coolest thing I've come across lately is pageflakes, which is a reader/rss aggregator thing. Google reader is blocked at my school, pageflakes is what I'm playing with at the moment.

Thanks for your blog, hope you are doing OK!

Marcia S. Kalayjian
mkalayjian@mac.com

Unknown said...

I dont think we ever formally thanked you for a great blog posting! Thanks for mentioning Gliffy--we appreciate it. Come check out some of our great new improvements--we'd love to know what you think,
Thanks again! debik at gliffy dot com

Evan said...

I suggest you to try creately diagramming and collaboration software then compare with gliffy. Its an online diagram software that can draw all diagram types including flowcharts, org charts, UML diagrams and mind maps. There are 1000s of diagram examples and templates in the diagram community where you can use them for free.