This document provides a list of free and low-cost online tools and resources that can be used for community building, collaboration, communication, and mobile access. It outlines social networking sites, tools for sharing videos, photos and websites, microblogging, cloud-based documents and storage, online meetings, mobile devices, and how-to websites for learning new skills. The resources listed include Facebook, YouTube, Google Docs, Skype, and eHow to help with ministry, sharing messages, collaborating with others, and staying connected through technology.

1. Looking for FREE (mostly) Computer Help & Resources?
Some Useful Resources to Help you in Ministry…
By Roy Yabuki, roy@isidfw.com
I. Community Building Tools
A. Social Networking
o Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/) – General Purpose Social Network – Students/friends most on
Facebook for pastors ‐ (http://ministrymarketingcoach.com/free‐e‐books/ )
o MySpace (http://myspace.com)
o Linked In (http://www.linkedin.com/) – Business Oriented Social Network
o Ning.com (http://www.ning.com/) – 1,000,000 different special purpose independent social networks
that you make yourself for free(E.g. http://allaboutgod.net, http://godrev.ning.com/)
B. Sharing the Story – Getting the Message Out
1. Video – Stored on their site, Embedded on yours
• youtube.com (http://www.youtube.com/) – can upload video. Great for viral
advertising… (http://www.willitblend.com/)
• Vimeo.com – Allows longer videos with more control – many churches using
• Tangle.com (Formerly Godtube) Good for Christian Audience
• Facebook Video – great for sharing with students and tagging ability is huge to get
video to students.
• Inexpensive Super Mini Video Cameras ‐ Pure Digital Flip Mino Camera, Creative
Vado($79, HD ‐ $200), Kodak Zi6
2. Photos
• Yahoo Flickr – Yahoo’s photosharing site. Becoming the facebook of pictures. More
organic in design. For sharing with others. Allows 10 min video too.
• Google Picasa – Google’s photo sharing site. Little more like storing it on a hard
drive. More intuitive.
• Phanfare – Very good service. Designed for photoalbums to share. Allows video.
• Facebook Photos ‐ great for sharing with students and tagging ability is huge to get
pictures to students you don’t even know. Great way to get to know students names
at your activities.
• Windows Live Photos – Newly upgraded. Part of the Windows Live network that
Microsoft is trying to develop
• Animoto – takes your photos and turns them into video slide shows complete with
music and effects.
3. Easy Website
• Blogs (wordpress.com, blogger.com, windows live spaces) Blogs can now be set up
as stand‐alone websites or dynamic websites. Can host your own as a content
management system. Example: http://isidenver.org
• Drop.io (http://drop.io) ‐ Free place to create temporary blogs/file repositories/
work areas/audio blogs online to share with friends, students, supporters, just
about anyone.
• Google sites(http://sites.google.com/) – Free service (pay more for more space &
pages) that allows you to make a website for your organization or business. Also will
allow links to a calendar, pictures site, special collaboration sites, etc.
• Office Live Small Business(http://smallbusiness.officelive.com/) – Similar to google
sites, but uses Microsoft products to build sites, etc.
4. Mass e­mail
• Yahoogroups, googlegroups, Windows live groups – great way to have a free
“listserv” where members of the group can quickly and easily send e‐mails to each

2. of the other members. People can subscribe etc. One weakness is that you don’t
know the fate of your e‐mails.
• iContact, Constant Contact – For pay e‐mail services that allow you to send mass e‐
mails to supporters, friends, students etc. You can segment your addresses into
groups. Advantage over mail merge or groups (above) is that these companies have
relationships with the major e‐mail companies ensuring that your message won’t
get trapped in a spam filter. In addition, there are no daily limits on messages.
Further, you get a report on who read the message and whether they clicked on
links on your messages or not.
II. Collaboration Tools­ Sharing ideas
• Students/Volunteers/Supporters as innovators and co‐creators
• Web is becoming more of a 2 way conversation than a store front.
A. Social Networking
Ning, Facebook Private Groups, Facebook Groups
B. Sharing Ideas, Questions, Resources
1. Blogs –
http://ISMTIPs.net, yabukibreeze.isisites.net
2. Forums –
“An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site. It is the modern equivalent of
a traditional bulletin board, and a technological evolution of the dialup bulletin board
system.People participating in an Internet forum may cultivate social bonds and interest groups
for a topic may form from the discussions.”
3. Wiki
A wiki is a website that uses wiki software, allowing the easy creation and editing of any number
of interlinked Web pages/documents with easy search capability. In other words a place where
people can store many documents that all of them are editing together to created a body of
information. (e.g.wikipedia)
4. Project Management Sites
a) 37Signals (basecamp ­ http://www.basecamphq.com/ , backpack)
b) Google Sites (http://sites.google.com)
c) Zoho (http://www.zoho.com/ )
5. Cloud computing
a) Shared documents
(1) Google docs
(2) Zoho.com
(3) Office Live Workspace (http://workspace.office.live.com)
b) Shared Storage
(1) Microsoft Skydrive (http://skydrive.live.com)
(2) Box.net
C. Microblogging
• Twitter (http://twitter.com/) ‐ Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers
to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers – Like a
walkie talkie online but can be accessed using text, mobile web, web, desktop applications, etc.
• Friendfeed (http://friendfeed.com) ‐ a real‐time feed aggregator that consolidates the updates from
social media and social networking websites, social bookmarking websites, blogs and micro‐blogging
updates, as well as any other type of RSS/ Atom feed.
• Yammer – Similar to twitter but each company has its own network and so allows some level of
privacy within one e‐mail domain.
D. Database
• Google Docs, Zoho, Constant Contact, iContact

3. E. Event Planning/Registration
• Eventbrite (Eventbrite.com)
III. Communication/Training/Discipling
A. Voip/Screensharing/Conference Calling
1. Cheap Video Multiparty Calls
a) VOIP
• Skype (http://skype.com)
• Microsoft IM, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Googletalk, etc.
• Oovoo (video) (oovoo.com)
b) Conference Calls
• Freeconference.com
2. Online Presentations/Screensharing
a) GotoMeeting.com
b) Yugma.com
c) Freeconference.com
B. Private Publishing
a) Blogs/Wiki/Filesharing
b) Scribd – books, booklets, etc.
c) Slideshare.com
IV. Mobile connection
• iPhone, Blackberry, Google Android
• Netbooks & Cloud computing
• voice.google.com
V. More Resources
A. How do I Sites? From doing a mail merge on windows to replacing your toilet,
there are videos and step by step guides to learn how to do just about anything.
Here are few good sites related to this genre. (eHow.com, howcast.com,
lifehacker.com)
B. Blog for ISM Ideas & Technology tips (http://ismtips. net)