Free Social Apps for Mac
Dropbox. Looking for a dead easy way to share even large files with people quickly? Check out Dropbox, a great utility app for the Mac (it actually runs on Windows and Linux as well) that essentially gives you 2 free GB of unrestricted cloud file storage.
A bit of a Swiss army-knife type of app, Dropbox does a lot of other things besides file-sharing. It can serve as a great automatic backup utility for important files as well as one of the easiest ways to synchronize a set of files between two computers, even across platforms. You also get a web-based interface for accessing your files, which is useful if you’re using a machine without Dropbox installed.
Further, you can increase the amount of your free space by 250 MB for every new user you refer to the service. Anyone who signs up via a referral link also gets an extra 250 MB.
Skitch. We really can’t rave enough about Skitch (we recently profiled it in our fun image generators list). Part screen capture tool, part easy doodling app, Skitch is also a dead simple way to quickly share screencaps, images and illustrations with others.
Included in the cost of this free app is server space for file storage, so in one click you can send an image to the web. There are privacy controls for your images as well, so you can make specific things public, or keep them private from anyone who doesn’t know the URL. You can even get an embed code or forum URL if desired.
Skitch also keeps a history trail of the images you send to the web for later retrieval and you can set it up to upload your pics to your own FTP server instead of the Skitch servers.
TweetDeck. Everybody has their favorite Twitter client, and the one I keep coming back to always seems to be TweetDeck. It’s certainly worth doing the TweetDeck vs. Seesmic Desktop head to head comparison for yourself (as well as checking out some of the other Twitter clients out there), but the interface and functionality of the former has won me over.
It’s got all the standard features you’d expect like inline URL shortening and the ability to send and receive tweets, plus goodies like multiple columns, groups, multiple account management, Twitscoop trends, short URL previews, and even a way to sync multiple instances of TweetDeck between different machines and your iPhone.
Gruml. Gruml is a desktop application that synchronizes with Google Reader for feed reading and brings many of the social features of gReader along with it. There are some who think RSS’s usefulness has been usurped by things like Facebook and Twitter, but to many it’s still the bread and butter method of staying up to date on what’s going on in their field.
Gruml brings the Google Reader RSS experience to your desktop and includes its social features like starring, liking, and sharing posts with notes and/or tags. You can also see headlines from stories that your friends have shared with you.
Gruml also comes with built-in Twitter integration, letting you tweet articles directly from the app itself after conversion to a short URL. It’s in beta for now so there may be the occasional bug or wonky bit here and there, but overall it’s a promising way to take your RSS experience to the Mac desktop if you already use Google Reader for your news-gathering.
NetNewsWire. If you don’t already use Google Reader and are looking for a good desktop RSS and Atom client for the Mac, check out NetNewsWire. Featuring a number of OS X integrations, attention filtering, delicious.com integration, blog posting integration, and more, NNW sports a familiar Mac-style three-paned interface.
Flock. Flock is a social web browser we recently profiled in our alternative browsers that are not IE6 feature. It features tight integration with a plethora of social sites including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Wordpress and more.
If you basically live on the internet, which we completely empathize with, Flock might be a great web browser to add to your arsenal. Remember there’s no reason (that we can think of) not to use multiple browsers at once, especially if you run a lot of cloud apps and so on.
Adium. If you use more than one instant messaging service regularly, you’re going to want a chat client that can support multiple protocols and accounts seamlessly. Not only does Adium deliver that, but its default sound when your contacts log in or out or send you a message is a quacking duck. What’s not to like?
The free and open source Adium supports a boatload of chat services including AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Gtalk, Facebook Chat and more. With a customizable look and feel and a number of user-created themes and icons to choose from, Adium is my IM client of choice on the Mac. [Mashable]
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