22 Web App Tools For Editors & Writers – Blancer.com Tutorials and projects

Writing is an interesting career that carries with it a sense of instant gratification. Not all writers and their bosses, editors, are tech savvy, and there’s hardly any reason for them to be. The web 2.0 era has spawned numerous apps that sweeten the task of researching, writing and editing content.

After the break, we’ve put together a list of apps that can bring a new wave of productivity into your life if you’re a riter, blogger or editor.

Google Docs

Google Docs is a complete package for the entire blogging team. Writers can use the flexible Docs apps to create content with images, forms, charts and more. The robust collaboration features make it easy for multiple authors to work on an article or for the editor to pitch with a comment. A full blown editorial calendar can be maintained with the help of the Spreadsheets app and Google Calender.

Pricing: Free
Sign Up: Not needed if you have a Gmail account.
Collaboration Ready?: Yes

Springpad

I have been using Springpad for the past month for all bookmarking and scrap booking needs and is one of the best apps I have discovered so far. I have reviewed a lot of similar bookmarking apps for Web.AppStorm, but this web app is so awesome and is amazingly fast even when clipping entire web pages for reference.

Pricing: Free
Sign Up: Required.
Collaboration Ready?: Yes

Wridea

Wridea is a web app that helps bloggers avoid ideas from being forgotten, then to organize and improve those ideas. The app also gives the opportunity to share your ideas with friends and necessary tools to improve your ideas by yourself and individually.

Pricing: Free
Sign Up: Required.
Collaboration Ready?: Yes

LooseStitch

Outliners are a great way to brainstorm ideas. LooseStitch assists writers share brief outlines with editors before writing up a full blown article that might not be suited for the publication in question. The built-in Contacts module helps you keep track of who you are working with and to assign tasks to friends and collaborators.

Pricing: Free and paid accounts are available.
Sign Up: Required.
Collaboration Ready?: Yes

Writeboard

Writeboard comes from the stable of the popular 37Signals team. If you are working in an outlet that uses other 37Signals products like Backpack etc. Writeboard will integrate perfectly with the setup.

Pricing: Free
Sign Up: Required.
Collaboration Ready?: Yes

AutoCrit

The AutoCrit Editing Wizard is an instant book editor. With the single click of a button it shows you the problems in the manuscript you are writing or reviewing. The Wizard identifies slow pacing, overused words, cliches and many more problems typical of early drafts.

Pricing: Free and paid accounts are available.
Sign Up: Required.
Collaboration Ready?: No

Merriam Webster

M-W is a well known name among those who are familiar with the concept of dictionary & thesaurus. The app is a great way to find words that are easy for the reader to understand.

Pricing: Free
Sign Up: Not Required.
Collaboration Ready?: No

Google Reader

Believe it or not, bloggers have to read what other bloggers write. Google Reader helps to read RSS feeds enabling you to rebut, research and update yourself with expert opinions – even if it not so much in realtime.

Pricing: Free
Sign Up: Not needed if you have a Gmail account.
Collaboration Ready?: Lot of wasy to share a feed / blog post.

Editorial Calender

Google Calender and Spreadsheets get the job done for an editor. But nothing beats a plugin that integrates nicely into the blogging platform of choice, WordPress. The editorial calendar gives you an overview of your blog and when each post will be published. You can drag and drop to move posts, edit posts right in the calendar, and manage your entire blog.

Pricing: Free.
Sign Up: Not Required.
Collaboration Ready?: Yes

Jing

Pictures have a huge impact on written content and screenshots are becoming more common in not only in blogs, but also in books and magazines. With its simple screen grab tool and impressive list of image editing features, Jing is a must have web app for hosting image captures.

Pricing: Free.
Sign Up: Required.
Collaboration Ready?: Yes

Microsoft Live Writer

Live Writer is a popular freeware from Microsoft and is extremely useful for people who do not want to compose into the WYSIWYG editor of the CMS. You can publish your posts to any of your favorite blog service providers.

Pricing: Free.
Sign Up: Required.
Collaboration Ready?: No

Hootsuite

What good is a writer or editor who is not in touch with his/her audience? And now that millions of people are on Twitter and Facebook, tracking them is simple with the right app. Hootsuite has now become synonymous with social media and is good for solo or team use.

Pricing: Free accounts and paid plans are available.
Sign Up: Required.
Collaboration Ready?: Yes

Zemanta

Zemanta is a tool that looks over your shoulder while you blog and gives you tips and advice, suggests related content and pictures and makes sure your posts get promoted as they deserve to be.

Pricing: Free.
Sign Up: Not Required.
Collaboration Ready?: No

Instapaper

Instapaper is a simple tool to save web pages for reading later. Ideal for people on the go to catch up some reading and researching from their mobile or at the work computer.

Pricing: Free account and ad free paid versions available.
Sign Up: Required.
Collaboration Ready?: No

Evernote

The all capable note taking app comes in handy for all kinds of notes, clippings and multimedia. Search by keyword, tag or even printed and handwritten text inside images.

Pricing: Free accounts and paid plans are available.
Sign Up: Required.
Collaboration Ready?: Yes

BibMe

It is very decent to give credit where it is due. The fully automatic bibliography maker that auto-fills. It’s the easiest way to build a works cited page.

Pricing: Free.
Sign Up: Required.
Collaboration Ready?: No

Polldaddy

The best way to find out what an important group of people think is to ask them. Conduct your staff, user and customer surveys with Polldaddy to get a better handle on how well you’re serving them

Pricing: Free accounts and paid plans are available.
Sign Up: Required.
Collaboration Ready?: No

Aviary

Aviary is a light weight online image editing tool for quick touch ups of the images you are planning to use in your publication. They have a full featured flash based photo editor and a ultra light weight HTML5 editor too.

Pricing: Free
Sign Up: Required.
Collaboration Ready?: No

Wufoo

Wufoo helps you create contact forms, online surveys, and invitations so you can collect the data, registrations and online payments you need without writing a single line of code.

Pricing: Free accounts and paid plans are available.
Sign Up: Required.
Collaboration Ready?: No

The Story Starter

Hit a wall? Not sure where to begin your writing assignment? Story Starter provides 1,007,240,080 creative ideas and writer prompts for writers of all ages. All of the story starters are randomly created. This idea generator can be used for short stories, novels, plays, scripts, or just for fun.

Pricing: Free
Sign Up: Not Required.
Collaboration Ready?: No

stock.xchng

Even if your writing does not involve screen grabs, there is a very good chance that you will need a stock image that is relevant to the story. SXC has a long history and a great community with a boat load of quality, free stock images.

Pricing: Free
Sign Up: Required.
Collaboration Ready?: No

Copyscape

The most advanced plagiarism search on the web. Check the originality of content before publishing it online. Be sure that all your content is fresh and plagiarism free! You can check by submitting links or pasting the entire content.

Pricing: Free accounts and paid plans are available.
Sign Up: Required.
Collaboration Ready?: No