My Favorite Web2.0 tools

As I understand it, Web 2.0 refers to the extensive use of user-generated content in web sites that began to become more popular a few years ago. This marked a change in the medium from the Internet using a more traditional model in which content was provided mainly by large corporations in a top-down fashion, to a system in which content is created and shared by large groups of online users...more "bottom-up", so to speak. I use Web 2.0 tools daily, and have a few favorites.

• iGoogle. It's basically a customizable homepage, with built in RSS readers. It allows me to get a quick overview of several websites, check my Gmail, check the weather, and even solve a few chess puzzles as a mental exercise. Maybe not technically Web 2.0, but I use it to link to several blogs, so I'll include it.
• YouTube. A phenomenal tool which can also be used as the world's most successful time-waster. A couple of my videos are on the site...mostly short films I made as Senior projects in high school.
• For good measure, I'll also include Facebook. This tool allows me to know mundane details of the daily goings-on about 300 of my closest friends and former classmates that I wouldn't otherwise know, find out 25 things about them, and then find out 25 more things about them.  I can even fill my day by perusing copious amounts of pictures from 21st birthday parties, much adored kittens, backyard barbeques, and places people went when I wasn't invited. How did I ever manage before the hourly onslaught of status updates? In all seriousness, though, I love that I can connect on Facebook with family in Belgium just as easily as with fellow teachers in my district. While it's not exactly a productivity tool in my case, I appreciate being able to make quick connections and small talk with friends and family around the globe.