I like to get things done more efficiently — but I also don’t like paying for software or tools to help make me more efficient. Bootstrapper has put together an excellent list of 100 free business tools, along with links to and descriptions of each tool.

While I was originally going to put together my own list of free tools, I think this list points out all the major tools I was going to include as potential tools for knowledge sharing (as well as a few more!). While some of the tools are purely information management-focused, there are a host listed under the ‘Networking’ heading that have great potential for knowledge sharing.

While this is a great list of tools, there are also many other free web tools that can be used to collaborate and share knowledge. Facebook is a great example — while it’s business uses seem ostensibly minimal, there are several cases where I’ve connected with people who I’ve shared a common business interest with.

Experimenting with these tools is the key to finding success with them. The more tools you use, the more likely you are to find a tool that works for the purposes you need it for. Go check out the list at Bootstrapper for more ideas on how you can better use these free tools.

A few months ago, I rounded up 26 sites and blogs (which ended up growing to 35) that I thought were essential voices in the knowledge management world. I got lots of great comments on that list, so I decided to repost the list as a new page.

In the past few months, that list has grown to 50 sites and blogs. I’ve received even more comments on the newly posted list, which has been a huge help to getting the list to just about double in size. This has been a great exercise for me to see how creating a collaborative list works.

The list has received thousands of visits, and I’m still surprised by how popular it is (it still gets lots of visits from Google and other search engines). I wanted to write this post to thank everyone who has contributed a site, left a comment, or just checked out the list — I think the list of sites has been extremely helpful to people looking for great knowledge management resources.

I’m going to be putting together another list that I’m hoping will be just as useful over the next week or two. I’m hoping that it can grow in the same collaborative way that this previous list did. Thanks again to all the readers who contributed!