A work in progress, this is your guide to free tools, cool sites and cool people the online journalist should know about:

Cool sites and tools

Read the latest on the journalism blogs http://journalism.alltop.com/
Search for content on sites that no longer exist - The Internet Archive http://archive.org
Check for facts - Media FactCheckr http://www.responsibleopposing.com/checker.html
See what people are linking to on Twitter - Twitturly http://twitturly.com/
Find 550+ news services on Twitter - Wikinews http://twitter.com/en_wikinews
Wikileaks - the home of leaked documents http://wikileaks.org/
Run the numbers on websites http://www.urlmetrix.com/
What's Hot on Wikipedia Right Now - Wikirage http://www.wikirage.com/
Organize meetups http://www.meetup.com/
Organize a barcamp for your journalist friends http://barcamp.org/
Learn to Type http://www.learn2type.com/
Find a Wi-fi Hotspot http://hotspotr.com/wifi
Capture Written Notes - Quippit http://www.qipit.com/
Read Airport Reviews http://www.flagxo.com/
Record your notes on your mobile -  Jott http://jott.com/
Find a meeting point http://www.mezzoman.com/
World Clock: http://www.timeanddate.com/
Weirdconverter http://www.weirdconverter.com/ [come up with interesting facts and figures for stories]
Show how news events unfold - Dipity http://dipity.com
Show data visually - Swivel http://swivel.com
Host and share documents online: Scribd http://scribd.com Docstoc http://docstoc.com
Create simple flash presentations http://sproutbuilder.com
Track the best in Online News - Popurls http://popurls.com
Create stickers for your blog http://www.blogsticker.net/
Government Transparency Information http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/resources/ on campaign contributions, earmarks, voting records and other details of what politicians do not just to get to Washington, but what happens once they get there. Tracks the presidential race and Congress, as well as the distribution of federal contract dollars.
Help a Report Out (HARO) http://www.helpareporter.com/ Reporters submit queries directly to PR professionals
PitchEngine http://pitchengine.com/ Press Releases web 2.0 style
Journalisted http://www.journalisted.com/ U.K.-based site to help readers search reporters and stay up to date on their work.
Media People Using Twitter https://twitteringjournalists.pbwiki.com/Media%20People%20Using%20Twitter
Track Awards and Honors http://www.awardsandhonors.com

8 users journalists must follow on Twitter
Jay Rosen http://twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu
Amy Gahran http://twitter.com/agahran
Steve Yelvington http://twitter.com/yelvington
Steve Outing http://twitter.com/steveouting
Howard Owens http://twitter.com/howardowens
Journalist Iconoclast http://twitter.com/jiconoclast
Mediaisdying http://twitter.com/mediaisdying

Mediaishiring http://twitter.com/mediaishiring

Blogs and sites you must bookmark (to be updated on Media, Journalism and Internet)

Gawker http://gawker.com [yes, it covers media really well. It is a session to open-minded, after all]
Romenesko http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45
E Media http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31
Mediashift http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/
Pressthink http://pressthink.com Written by Journalism professor Jay Rosen
CJR http://cjr.org The Columbia School of Journalism
Buzzmachine http://buzzmachine.com
Seobook http://seobook.com
Churchofthecustomer http://churchofthecustomer.com
Poynter http://www.poynter.org/
The Pew Center http://www.pewcenter.org/
Google Directory of Journalist Organizations http://directory.google.com/Top/News/Media/Journalism/Organizations/
The Knight Digital Center http://www.knightcenter.umd.edu/
Project for Excellence in Journalism http://www.journalism.org/
Poynter's Tip Sheets http://poynteronline.org/resource_center/
Weblog Usability http://www.useit.com/alertbox/weblogs.html
Problogger Advice for all bloggers http://problogger.net
Online Journalism Review http://www.ojr.org/
Reporters without Borders http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=20
Medialaw Resource Center http://www.medialaw.org/
Wired Journalists http://mediageeks.ning.com/
Center for Citizen Media http://citmedia.org/
Citizen Media Monitor http://www.cyberjournalist.net/citizen_media_monitor

Blog Networks
Gawker http://www.gawker.com/
AOL Weblogs Inc. http://www.weblogsinc.com/
B5 Media http://www.b5media.com/
9 Rules http://www.9rules.com/

Online Activism
GlovalVoicesOnline- Blog For a Cause http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/projects/guide-blog-for-a-cause/
All Global Voices Advocacy Projects http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/projects/
NGO In A Box http://www.tacticaltech.org/
Tactical Tech NGO In A Box http://www.messageinabox.tacticaltech.org/
The Citizen's Handbook http://www.vcn.bc.ca/citizens-handbook/
The Activists' Handbook http://protest.net/activists_handbook/index.html

Free Email Software Zimbra http://zimbra.com

Blogging

Wordpress [free software]- http://wordpress.org
Drupal http://drupal.org/
Geeklog http://www.geeklog.net/
Zoomla http://zoomla.com

Tumblr http://tumblr.com

Free Blogs

Wordpress http://wordpress.com
Blogger http://blogger.com
Typepad http://typepad.com

Liveblogging
Coveritlive http://coveritlive.com

Host a random Page
Google Pages http://pages.google.com/

Micro-blogging
Twitter http://twitter.com/home
Jaiku http://jaiku.com
Twitter Search http://search.twitter.com/
Tweet Scan http://tweetscan.com/alerts.php
Twibble http://twibble.com send GPS tagged tweets

Mobile-blogging
Shozu http://shozu.com
Smsgupshup http://smsgupshup.com
Ushahidi http://www.ushahidi.com/ [mobile crowdsourcing tool for Crisis Information]
Textmerica http://www.textamerica.com/
[You can also blog to Twitter from your mobiel. All normal blogging tools now have extensions to help blog from your mobile]

Blog by Email
Posterous: http://posterous.com

Host documents online
Scribd http://scribd.com
Docstoc http://docstoc.com

Social Networking

Industry Networking Linkedin http://linkedin.com
Facebook http://facebook.com
Orkut http://Orkut.com
Myspace http://myspace.com

Ping.fm http://www.ping.fm/ [post to various social networking sites at once]

Create Your Own Social Network
Ning http://ning.com

Social News

Propeller http://propeller.com
MIxx http://mixx.com
Slashdot http://slashdot.org Tech Oriented but great conversations
Digg http://digg.com Tech and all things young males like
Metafilter http://metafilter.com $5 joining fee

Polling
Polldaddy :http://polldaddy.com
Use to source opinion from people.

Wikis
Pbwiki http://pbwiki.com
Socialtext http://www.socialtext.com/
Wetpaint http://wetpaint.com

Create Comics
Gnomz http://en.gnomz.com/
ComicsSketch http://www.mainada.net/comics/

Scrapbooks
Scrapblog http://scrapblog.com

Multimedia

Screenshot tools
Jing: Use Jing to grab a screenshot and gussy it up with a caption, highlight, or arrow. Post to Flickr, share on Twitter, send to a friend. ...requires .NET framework
http://www.jingproject.com/

Photo tools
Picasa http://www.picasa.google.com/

Picnik - Free Online Photo Retouching http://www.picnik.com/

GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program
http://www.gimp.org/

Flickr Tools:
Flickr Tell a Story in 5 Frames http://flickr.com/groups/visualstory/
Flickr Six Word Story http://www.flickr.com/groups/sixwordstory/

Page Layout
Scribus - Free Pagemaker-type software. http://scribus.net

Audio Tools
Video Lan Client: Reads almost any format
Audacity: Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder....http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ -
Fision (for Mac) http://www.rogueamoeba.com/fission/ free trial only
Switch http://www.nch.com.au/switch/ free trial only

Mix Voices - Voice Threads http://voicethread.com/

Video Tools
Avidemux http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/: Available for Microsoft Windows, Linux, BSD and Mac OS X, you can cut, filter and encode video files.
Any Video Converter: This software can converts videos and YouTube clips for iPod, Zune, PSP, 3GP phone, MP4 player. (For Windows) http://www.any-video-converter.com/products/for_video/
MediaCoder: Universal media coder for Windows. http://www.rarewares.org/mediacoder/
VirtualDub:Free video editing program available for Windows.http://www.virtualdub.org/
OGMRip: Available for Linux. Is an Application for ripping and encoding DVD into AVI, OGM, MP4, or Matroska files http://ogmrip.sourceforge.net/en/index.html

Oniline Video
Jumpcut http://jumpcut.com: Edit videos online.

Youtube http://youtube.com
Viddler http://viddler.com: Add links to the timeline of your video
Blip.tv http://blip.tv
Vimeo http://vimeo.com

Live Streaming Video

UStream http://ustream.com
Mogulus http://www.mogulus.com/
Qik http://qik.com/ [live video from your phone]
Bambuser http://www.bambuser.com/ [ live video from mobile]

Download Youtube Videos
http://zamzar.com
http://vixy.net
http://converttube.com

Free Text Editors
Editplus http://www.editplus.com/download.html
Notepad++ http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

Free E-mail
Gmail http://gmail.com Now with more features
Yahoo Mail http://mail.yahoo.com

Maps http://maps.google.com/
Instant Voice Message http://skype.com
Calendar: Google Calendar http://www.google.com/calendar
Translator Google Translator http://www.google.com/translate_t
IM Meebo http://www.meebo.com/ Log into any or all your IM service - Gmail, AIM, yahoo

Presentations/Slideshows
Slideshare http://slideshare.net Free
Zoho Show http://show.zoho.com/
Audio Slideshow http://www.soundslides.com/ $40
Vuvox http://www.vuvox.com/ Create slideshow by aggregating data from Flickr, Picasa albums, Rss feeds and Facebook pics.
Slide http://slide.com: Free, embeddable slideshows
Animoto http://animoto.com/ Create music video like shows..
Fabrik http://filmloop.myfabrik.com/
Sproutbuilder http://sproutBuilder.com Flash Presentations

News and Opinion as Comic/Graphic [to use as inspiration]
Gaping Void http://www.gapingvoid.com/
XKCD http://xkcd.com
Indexed http://indexed.com

Multiple site Social Bookmarking
Shareholic: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5457
Socialmarker http://www.socialmarker.com/

Social bookmarking:
Delicious http://del.icio.us/
Furl http://www.furl.net/
Magnolia http://magnolia.com
Clipmarks http://www.clipmarks.com/
Publish2 http://www.publish2.com [only for journalists]
Skimbit http://skimbit.com [visual bookmarking]

Online RSS feed readers
Google Reader http://www.google.com/reader/
Bloglines http://www.bloglines.com/

Create RSS for your blog/site Feedburner http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/home
Create RSS feed for any site/page Feedity http://feedity.com/
Combine RSS feeds Yahoo Pipes http://pipes.yahoo.com/

Create Mobile Version of your site
MoFuse http://www.mofuse.com/ [uses your rss feed]

RSS software [for devices]
NetNewsWire (Mac) http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/NetNewsWire/Default.aspx
NetNewsWire for iPhone http://www.newsgator.com/INDIVIDUALS/default.aspx
NewsFire (Mac) http://www.newsfirerss.com/
FeedDemon (Windows) http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/FeedDemon/Default.aspx
FeedReader (Windows) http://www.feedreader.com/

Personalized news pages
MyYahoo http://my.yahoo.com/
iGoogle http://www.google.com/ig
Netvibes http://www.netvibes.com/
PageFlakes http://www.pageflakes.com/

Blog Search
Technorati http://technorati.com/
Icerocket http://www.icerocket.com/
BlogPulse http://www.blogpulse.com/
Sphere http://www.sphere.com/

News alerts
Google Alerts http://www.google.com/alerts
Yahoo Alerts http://alerts.yahoo.com/

Documents
Google Docs [Wordprocessing, Spredsheet] http://docs.google.com/
Zoho [everything] http://www.zoho.com/

Photos
Flickr http://www.flickr.com/
ZoneTag http://ZoneTag.com geotag pictures

Organize your online work
Backpack http://www.backpackit.com/

Bypass registration at sites Bugmenot http://www.bugmenot.com/

Free online storage
Box http://www.box.net/
Windows Live SkyDrive http://skydrive.live.com/
Wuala http://wua.la/
Nomadesk http://www.nomadesk.com/
Omnidrive http://www.omnidrive.com/
Streamload http://www.mediamax.com/

Search People
Pipl http://www.pipl.com/
Wink http://wink.com/
ZoomInfo http://www.zoominfo.com/
YoName http://www.yoname.com/

Creative Commons
http://www.creativecommons.org/
Wikipedia has a dedicated section on open source content http://commons.wikimedia.org/
Flickr also has a great section dedicated to free images http://flickr.com/commons

Create Your Own Forum
Vanilla http://getvanilla.com/ a free, elegant looking forum software with web 2.0 features
phpBBB http://www.phpbb.com/
SimpleMachine http://www.simplemachines.org/
Slashcode http://www.slashcode.com/ [powers the popular Slashdot site]

Send out Newsletters
Feeburner's service http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/publishers/emailsub
It converts your RSS feed into emails and you can paste the code in your site/blog

Mailing Lists and Newsgoups

Google Groups http://groups.google.com/
Yahoo Groups http://groups.yahoo.com/
Bigboards http://www.big-boards.com/

Web Meeting

Campfire http://www.campfirenow.com/ -
Yugma http://yugma.com Can also add and share whiteboards

Maps
Zeemaps http://zeemaps.com/
Quikmaps http://www.quikmaps.com/
Atlas http://www.fmatlas.com/
Modest Maps http://modestmaps.com/
Google Maps http://maps.google.com
Map a List http://mapalist.com/ Create Google Maps from address list

Scrape Data from Sites

Dapper http://www.dapper.net/
XPDF http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/

Vizualize data in new ways
Text 2 Mind Map http://www.text2mindmap.com/
Swivel (make and share charts) http://swivel.com
Many Eyes http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/
R http://www.r-project.org/
Create Timelines: Dandelife http://dandelife.com

Web Design
Blueprint CSS Framework http://www.blueprintcss.org/
Yahoo! UI Library - set of controls written in Javascript http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/
KompoZer Free Open Source Web Design Software http://kompozer.net/

FTP
FTP Commander http://www.internet-soft.com/ftpcomm.htm
Cyberduck http://www.cyberduck.ch/

Blog/site statistics

Statcounter http://statcounter.com
Sitemeter http://sitemeter.com
Google Analytics http://analytics.google.com

Search & reference

Use Google Advanced Search http://www.google.com/advanced_search
Search for websites/blog Google Directory http://directory.google.com
Refdesk http://refdesk.com/
Whois http://www.whois.net/ Domain and registration name lookup

Create your own Search Engine
Google http://www.google.com/coop/cse/?h1=en

Answers
Yahoo Answers http://answers.yahoo.com/
Ask Metafilter http://ask.metafilter.com
Answer http://answers.com

Monitor Trends

Google Trends http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?sa=X
Yahoo Buzz http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog
Twitscoop http://www.twitscoop.com/ [track what's hot on Twitter at the moment]
Twitturly http://twitturly.com/ [track which are shared the most]

Free resources for finding legal, podsafe music and video
Internet Archive http://www.archive.org/
Open Source VJ Loops and Performances http://www.archive.org/details/opensource_vj
Wikipedia: Sound/list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sound/list
Public Domain Torrents http://www.publicdomaintorrents.com/
Public Domain Classical Music Musopen http://www.musopen.com/
CcWiki - Music Podcasts http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Music_Podcasts
Internet Archive Netlabels http://www.archive.org/details/netlabels
Index of free independent music http://AudioFeeds.org

Law for Citizen Journalists: Copyright and Fair Use

United States Copyright Office http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright
The UK Patent Office - Copyright http://www.patent.gov.uk/copy/
Legal guide for bloggers (EFF — offsite) http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/
Bloggers and the Freedom of Information Act http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/faq-FOIA.php
Bloggers' FAQ on defamation http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/faq-defamation.php
Creative Common License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Bloggers' FAQ on media access http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/faq-mediaaccess.php
Bloggers' FAQ on the reporter's privilege: protecting confidential sources http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/faq-journalists.php
Bloggers' FAQ on privacy http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/faq-privacy.php
What are my rights as a photographer in public places? (PDF) http://www.archive.org/download/Photographers_Right/ThePhotographersRight.pdf

Please share your cool tools and make this page better.