Earlier this week the Google Apps Marketplace opened to everyone. Thanks to Fred Delventhal, one of the first apps that I learned was in the Marketplace is Aviary. Aviary offers free, web-based, image editing services and sound editing services. You can find some of my previous posts about Aviary’s services here, here, and here.

By offering their services for free in the Google Apps Marketplace, Aviary is allowing anyone using Google Apps for Domains (either education or enterprise editions) to integrate Aviary services into the Google services they’re already using. When added to your Apps, Aviary will appear in your list of Google Apps services just like Docs, Reader, and all of your other favorite Google tools.

Please note, to install Aviary from the Google Apps Marketplace you must have administrative rights to your domain. For those interested in adding Aviary to your Google Apps domain, I’ve included a short tutorial below. You can also read the directions on the Aviary blog.

Here is a video produced by Aviary about using their services in Google Apps.

Aviary isn’t the only service with educational uses in the Google Apps Marketplace. You can also find some free scheduling tools, document synchronization tools, and security applications. Most of the offerings in the Google Apps Marketplace are not free. Hopefully, in the future there will be more companies like Aviary who see the value in offering their apps for free to educational institutions.

Applications for Education
Integrating Aviary into your Google Apps will provide your students with a free, easily accessible alternative to Photoshop and other expensive images editors. Aviary’s sound editing service also provides students with the ability to work on sound mixing projects from multiple computers.