What is Social Software?

This article seeks to explain it.

Social Software

Add Affiliates Easily

Here are a couple of ways to easily support an affiliate program on your website. Just let the experts handle the affiliate relationship.

ShareASale.com
AffiliateFuture.com

Practice Your Programming Skills 2

Code Kata - Dave Thomas, one of the Pragmatic Programmers, took the idea of coding practice and made
something....well, pragmatic out of it. He created a series of what he
calls Code Kata, which are small, thought-provoking exercises that
programmers can do in the language of their choice. Each kata
emphasizes a specific technique or thought process, providing a concrete
flexing of one's mental muscles.

Practice Your Programming Skills

TopCoder.com is a long-standing programming competition
site. You can register for an account and compete online for
prizes. Even if you're not interested in competing with others, Top-
Coder offers a practice room with a large collection of practice problems
that you can use as excellent fodder for your practice sessions.
Go sign up and give it a try.

UShip: Who Wants to Ship This?

Let shipping carriers compete for your business. Just list your shipping need and get bids from interested shippers, then go with the cheapest. Supposedly shippers often have extra room in their trucks which they would like to fill up but their problem is finding stuff to carry there. Now these same shippers can go to this site and try to win your business so they can fill up their trucks.

UShip.com

Fotolia.com

Here is another great photo resource:
Fotolia.com is the revolutionary image bank that is fast, easy and always on. More than 3.2 million images starting at $1 are ready for downloaded. 1000 new members a day are inspired by our spirit!

• Over 3.2 million professional images
  
• High quality images starting at just $1
• Free membership
  
• Revolutionary images
  
• Industry disruptor

Join now for a free Fotolia account and get 3 free images. Visit Fotolia.com and enter promo code VAU3IEZN during registration.

Adobe Lab's Color Schemes

Check out Adobe Lab's own version of what a color scheme picker should look like:
kuler.adobe.com

FlirtingInTraffic.com

I think this is a nice concept with lots of potential. ABC News Nightline did a story about it. However, there are some security issues to be concerned about. Would you want a predator who saw you to know who you are?

On the Fast Track to Love
FlirtingInTraffic.com

Openkapow

You have to see this to believe it. You can now create "robots" which can navigate anywhere in the web and feed you back the info as REST, RSS, etc.

Openkapow.com

Review by Infoworld

MySpace for Kids

There are various sites for pre-teen, pre-MySpace kids who are too young to blend in with the older kids on MySpace. Here is a NYT Review:
My Daughter, the Burger-Flipping Penguin

Some of the mentioned services are:
ClubPenguin.com
WebKinz.com
Imbee.com
Whyville.net
Nicktropolis.com
Disney Xtreme Digital

Catalog All Your Stuff

New services aim to be your online catalog of all the stuff you own. Then you can share all the stuff you own with your friends and eventually buy/sell with each other. Online retailers also can automatically register the stuff you buy with these services and then advertise related items to you when you view your stuff.
NYT Review: Got Roomfuls of Stuff? Now Sitew Will Help Keep Track of It

Zebo.com
MyThings.com
iTaggIt.com

Another Shopping Experience

Here is yet another online shopping experience which aims to ease online comparison shopping and searching.
Glimpse.com
NYT Review: A Narrow Window Into the Future
Here are my previous shopping experiences I discovered.

Upload Your Cell's Videos

Upload all your videos and photos from your cell and let others watch them, even live.
Kyte.tv
NYT Review: Social Networking Leaves Confines of the Computer

Trend Hunters

Here is another site to keep track of trends.
TrendHunter.com

Mapki: Google Maps Mashups Wiki

For help on anything concerning the Google Maps API this wikipedia-style site has all the info and links you will need to create your own Google Map Mashup.
Mapki.com
For seeing examples of Google Maps Mashups visit the Google Maps Mania blog.

JSONER: Library for JSON

The next hottest thing in dealing with JSON is a new Javascript library called JSONER. And if you don't know what JSON is yet, you better start finding out. It is a more efficient way to transfer data with AJAX instead of using XML.

Human-powered Local Search

Here is another service that is moving away from software to human-powered. It is local searching, which basically means searching for business info, attractions, events, history, etc. at a localized level usually from a local expert. Here is one of the first services to attempt this with real humans, presumably available thru chat 24x7:

AskPoodle.com

Human-powered Transcriptions

Normally one would expect for computer to automatically transcribe voice to text, but because of accuracy problems and having to "train" the software to your voice, there is an effort to get a human network of transcribers to be available 24x7 to alleviate all these problems.

One of the first to do this is Jott.com. They have a toll-free number you call and speak for up to 30 seconds. Real humans then transcribe your message to text and send it to your destination(s) which you will have previously setup in your free account at jott.com.

This is a very interesting trend of using human networks to usurp the normal role of computers. Can you think of other industries or services where this is happening?

Human-powered Searching

Obviously computers by themselves are not smart enough to answer all our search request, so now some folks are using real humans to power searching. Some searching is done in real-time by humans over the phone, for example Scott Jones's ChaCha.com. Other searching will apparently be an amalgamation of user recommendations of the best search results, for example Jimmy Wales' Search Wikia.

On Wikipedia I searched for "human search engine" and also found Jatalla.com

These new services depend on a network of people doing all the work. If I were building a network of people I would definitely get pointers from these two big players.

Crowdsourced Startup Advice

Read about other entrepreneurs' experiences and advice for starting up a business and sustaining it.

Startupping.com
FoundRead.com

Learn Chinese With Podcasts

I just got my first iPod (I know, I know, I'm a little slow at getting up to speed on gadgets) and I discovered, through iTunes, a great source of daily Chinese lesson podcasts. I've tried the first intro and I think I'm hooked on this stuff. The instruction is excellent. If you want to learn Chinese, then I definitely recommend this.

ChinesePod.com

Bad Fads Museum

This museum showcases many of the past fads. Check here to see if your idea has not been a fad before.

BadFads.com

How to Get VCs' Attention

Need help getting the attention of Venture Capitalists? Listen to what Guy Kawasaki has to say:

How to Get the Attention of a Venture Capitalist

All In One Searches

Both Yahoo and Google are developing a new interface for search that gives you the usual results but also results from Blogs, YouTube, Flickr, etc all on one page.

Yahoo's Alpha
Google's SearchMash

Be a Ticket Flipper

Have some extra tickets and want to sell them?

StubHub.com
RazorGator.com
Craigslist.org
eBay.com

BumpTop: New Desktop

In the near future we are likely to see an interface for our computer's desktop much like this one called BumpTop.

NYT review
YouTube Demo

Democratizing Innovation

Need to improve your product? Just let its users do the innovations. In this sense then, you become not a product innovator but an innovation facilitator. You empower its users to contribute and collaborate on improving your product.

NYT article
Free Democratizing Innovation book

The Intention Economy

The mentality is changing from: don't tell me what you are selling. Instead, I'll tell you what I want to buy.

In this new intention economy, a buyer has full intention to by something in particular. The sellers will not only need to offer the exact user specifications but compete on price, service and quality.

Checkout the Intention Economy at:
TrendWatching.com
LinuxJournal.com

Here Come the Flex Components

I ran across this article at Basement.org about the coming influx of new Flex 2.0 components.

Basement.org

Who Visits Your Blog?

Add a small code to your template to keep logs of all your visitors and what they clicked on.

MyBlogLog.com

Wall Street for YouTube generation

Groovy, hip, cool view of Wall Street news in easy to digest bite-sized videos.
Wallstrip.com

Managed RoR Hosting

These guys will handle all the deployment, infrastructure, scaling, etc for your Ruby on Rails apps.

EngineYard.com
Review at GigaOm

Trends in Ecommercio 2.0

Here are some thoughts on what E-commerce 2.0 means. They are very interesting and I think most certainly these ideas are going to be broadly implemented across the ecommerce world.
The Velvet Revolution
The Next Generation

Some RIA Shopping Sites

A whole new generation of shopping sites is on the horizon based on Rich Internet Application technology. RIAs, also known as AJAX or Web 2.0 applications, are transforming how the Web looks and feels because they are designed to take advantage of broadband Internet speeds and are not based on the traditional Web page metaphor. Instead of sending you a page of text and images to view, an RIAenabled site first sends you software that takes over some or all of your Web browser and delivers the experience the Web site owners have developed.

RIAs for the Holidays
ShopComposition.com — great-looking, full-blown RIA shopping for designer home goods.
Nike.com — another RIA shopping experience from the folks who "Just Did It."
Etsy.com — serendipitous product finding interfaces; try the Shop by Color, Time Machine and Sampler features.

Ecommerce 2.0 Trends

Here are some thoughts on what Ecommerce 2.0 means. They are very interesting and I think most certainly these ideas are going to be broadly implemented across the ecommerce world.
The Velvet Revolution

Reviews & Ratings 4 your site

If your ecommerce website does not have product reviews and product ratings entered by users, then you can easily add them using these two services. Of course, you can build your own infrastructure to do the same, but considering that PowerReviews is free, you might as well give them a try and save yourself some time and effort.
PowerReviews.com
BazaarVoice.com

Allurent: Radical New Shopping Experience

Allurent is using Adobe's Flex to building totally different shopping carts and online stores. U need to look at the demos to really know what this is all about. It may be called Rich Internet Applications for eCommerce.
Here is a demo.

Exponential Growth 4 Your Biz

Social networking sites are starting to open up their web APIs. Facebook, Friendster, and others are starting to let third-party developers build new features to attract more users—and profits. What does this mean for your business? If u r smart enough, u will figure out how to leverage the APIs to put your product/service in front of all those millions of users.

SlashDot article
Biz Week article

Online Video Industry Index

There are now so many companies vying to be the next YouTube, it's easy to lose track of them all. So let's take a look at the entire online video industry and categorize the major players. 

In this post we've summarized the latest video industry innovations under the following categories:

• Video Sharing
• Intermediaries
• Video Search
• Video eCommerce
• Video Editing & Creation
• Rich Media Advertising
• P2P (Peer To Peer)
• Video Streaming
• Vlogosphere

Minipreneurs: Instant Biz Owners

Set up your free shop in a few minutes. Have all your friends shop at your website and u shop at theirs. Everyone makes commissions. Even shop at your own website and get cash back from buying the items. If u already have your online store, sign up with one of these services to get others to sell your stuff.

Shop Here
Give Me Cash
FavoriteThingz.com
Zlio.com
MyPickList.com
Springwise Report

Time to Get Rich

Here's a guy from Stanford who has lots of advice about how to get rich. I actually went to Stanford University as well, Class of 1989.
iwillteachyoutoberich.com

DIY Instructables

Another social network for sharing instructions for making all kinds of tangible stuff and for people who want to learn about it.
"This is a great place to start if you're looking to find a cool DIY project to try out"
Instructables.com

Another one is Make found at makezine.com

Tutorials 2.0

Tutorials on graphics, coding, etc. submitted by you for you. It's another social networking site, but this one targeted at people who want to share their expertise and at people who want to learn from others. Sign me up for that one.
Tutorials20.com

Hey!Watch: Universal Video Encoding

These folks have a service that can take any video from practically any online source, such as YouTube, and encode it to practically any format, such as for the PSP, Wii, iRiver, etc. You decide what video u want to watch and what device to watch it on. This service does the magic of transforming the file to your needs.
Hey!Watch

Movers 2.0

These are the movers and shakers of Web 2.0. Keep on eye on them and on any new ones. There are other sources as well, which I have elsewhere in this blog. If u know of any others, please let me know and I'll make a comprehensive list of Web 2.0 lists, that is a list of lists.
Movers 2.0

How to Harness the Power of Web 2.0

Good, practical, succint advice about what to do to keep up with Web 2.0.
BizWeek

What's a ScrapBlog?

Create your own scrapblog, which is just like a scrap book with pictures, comments, nice backgrounds, etc. But since it is digital, you can also have music and videos. Once you are done, you can share it on MySpace, Facebook, etc. You can even print it out or get a DVD of it.
ScrapBlog.com

Bleeding Edge Programming

Of course RoR is rocking, but there are some other great programing paradigms shifts happening. Two of these are Adobe's Apollo project and Yahoo's Pipes. If u r a developer and want to do some awesome stuff, then u need to know about these.

Adobe's Apollo
Yahoo's Pipes

Gigantic Ecommerce Deal

There is news that eBay and MySpace may be teaming up to create an extremely large ecommerce shop. What this means is that any MySpace registered user can sell items to any of his/her friends. So that's millions of friends being able to sell to millions of other friends. And of course, any person is more likely to buy something from a friend than from anyone else.

MySpace and eBay

Share2Me

With this new service u can share any digital item to:

> Instant Messenger

> Email Account

> MySpace Page

> FaceBook Wall (coming soon!)

and more...
Share2Me.com

Demo 07

The Demo 07 Conference is a showcase of the world's best emerging technologies.
Check them out at Demo.com

Shipwire: Small Biz Shipping

Shipwire.com²⁰ — Online shipping services for the small business owner — $30 per month, and has a free trial offer.

New Lense

Get a second lens for your camera that attaches on top of your existing lens. It will allow you to reposition the focus point on your subject. The effect is to create blurs around your focal point.

Lensbabies.com

Sewing is Back Big

Sewing skills are back again, and in a big way. Here is what the NY Times has to say:
NYT
And here are websites where all sorts of handcraft skills are sorely needed:
Etsy.com

DaWanda.com

Redroller: Compare Shipping Carriers

Compare -  real-time rates and delivery/pickup options from top carriers.
Ship -  directly from your Ship From address; print shipping labels; and then track and view shipment reports.
Save -  time and save money. It's so easy. And, best of all, RedRoller is FREE!
redroller.com

Searching by Tags

Social tagging is big now among many different websites. Now there is one site in which you can search by any tag across different websites at the same time. You can search via tag using services like Youtube, Flickr, Technorati, 43Things, and many of their competitors.

TagBulb.com

Sell on Mobiles

Sell your stuff on mobile devices. Just use Gumiyo and they will take care of the details. All u do is upload your product images, etc.

Gumiyo.com

B 4 Inviting Google to Your Site

Here is a checklist of things to have ready before inviting Google to crawl your website for their search engine.

Get Ready

BofA Keep the Change

Bank of America is running a promotion called "Keep the Change" where for every purchase paid with your checkcard they will round up the purchase amount to the nearest dollar and deposit the difference to your savings account. So it's like keepng your extra change in your savings account. Then they will match 100% of the spare change for the first three months and match 5% thereafter. Does this sound like a good deal?

When we do the math, it may not turn out to be so great. I took a look at my own spending habits and this is what I discovered.

• I have an average of 50 checkcard purchases per month.
• If you average the spare change on any purchase you get $0.50. That's because the average number from 1 cent to 99 cents is 50 cents.
• 50 x $0.50 = $25.00 you will be putting aside into your savings account.
• For the first three months, BofA will match 100% of $25.00 so in three months that's $75 BofA will put into your savings.
• Thereafter, BofA matches 5% so on average $25 x 5% = $1.25 per month BofA will put into your savings.
• In one year BofA will put $1.25 x 12 = $15.00
• $15 is nothing compared to any overdraft or under balance fees you may pay in a year.

Their deal is at:
BofA.com

Add Widgets to My Blog

Time to add some cool widgets for my blog. Or better yet, why not create my own widgets that can generate income for both those who add my widget to their sites and for me.
NYT review

Basics of Online Payment Systems

>From a programming standpoint, how do u go about processing online payments?
Here are a few summaries of the process.
Basics

Apple's Gazillion New Products

Apple has plenty of catching up to do. It better hurry up in getting these new products produced before their future products become obsolete by other emerging technologies.
Apple's Next Product

Product Development 2.0

A very interesting article about what Product 2.0, its business model and its potential. These thoughts are from Dion Hinchcliffe.

Product Development 2.0

Infonomia: Spanish Ideas

A website in Spanish to promote new ideas. They have a magazine called "if"
Infonomia.com

Internet TV by Skype Founders

After they sold Skype to eBay, the founders are at it again. This time they want everyone to access any international TV channel thru their new service to be called Joost. One of their competitors is TVUNetworks.com and another is Babelgum.com
Joost.com
Read review

Watch TV From Around the World

Watch any station, in any part of the world. It's coming soon. Actually in the beginning you'll be able to watch just some channels, but the infrastructure is being set up to support all of the world's TV channels.

TVUNetworks.com

My Ideas on Cambrian House

I submitted my iPhone ideas to Cambrian House. Vote for them if u think they are some of the best ideas you've ever known.

Cambrian House

Future Computer Interface

To complement the mouse, keyboard, stylus, pen tablet, voice, etc., we will be interacting with computers thru the use of our hands. In fact, this will open the possibilities of completely new applications.

Demo
Invented by Jefferson Han

iPhone Killer Apps

Since Apple's new iPhone runs OS X we should be seeing some killer applications for it soon. Here are three of my favorites:

1. iShopper. Scenario: u r shopping and find an item u really like but the price is 2 high. Using your iPhone's camera u upload a picture of the item to an "object search engine" such as Like.com. The search engine returns a list of similar items available in your local shopping area, along with current prices and availability. It may turn out there is an exact same item just down the mall at another store, so it just saved u a lot of time.

2. iPlacer. Scenario1: Your friend calls u and the iPhone simultaneously auto-places your friend on a Google map at his exact location. Now you can keep track of each other's location. Scenario 2: U find yourself in an unknown city or neighborhood and need a taxi. Your problem is that there are no street signs so u normally couldn't give your location to a taxi. Not a problem anymore because u and the taxi have iPhones and the taxi driver can pinpoint you.

3. iGuide. Scenario: u r touring an unfamiliar territory, such as a shopping, restaurant, or historical district. Using your iPhone's camera and its GPS you point it at a restaurant. It recognizes the restaurant and gives u its website, contact info and menu. U then point your phone at a historical landmark and the iPhone does a search and gives u all sorts of historical background info of what u r looking at.

4. iEvent. I first thought that this app should be called iSportster, but then I realized it applies to more than just sporting events. The concept comes from the movie The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. In the movie we see groups of kids watching the cars race by and using their phones' built-in videocams to broadcast the race to other groups of kids further down the racetrack. At every turn of the racetrack there are kids doing the same thing with their phones, thereby eveyone is viewing the race from different angles in real time. The phones are able to broadcast the video to other phones.

Now with the iPhone and all its glorious features, this concept can be refined. The scene: u r at a basketball game at a stadium equipped with WiFi. As u walked into the stadium your phone received a seating map of stadium. Many other fans are there sitting all over the stadium with their own iPhones. Each fan is videocaming their view of the game and is being broadcast to other iPhones. In addition, the TV cameras at the stadium are also broadcasting, thru WiFi, their video footage to the iPhones. With your iPhone u view the seating map of the stadium and see all the pin markers of all the iPhones and TV cameras available for viewing. U pick a camera and view the game from that angle in real time. U have to go to the rest room but don't want to miss a second of the game, so u take your iPhone with u. Their are also people outside the stadium with iPhones who could not get a ticket to the game, but are able to view the game thru all the available cameras as well.

Now think about a local high school baseball game, where there is no WiFi. Many fans with iPhones sitting all around are also able to share video footage by broadcasting to each other because the iPhone s also operate on the Cingular network. To navigate to different videocams, each iPhone can pull up a Google map of their location with pin markers of other local iPhones sharing their video footage. By clicking on one of these pin markers u can change your viewing angle of the game in real time.

Because this applies to more than just games, think about what other types of events this could be useful at. For example, at a parade u often wonder what's coming down the road next. Well up the road there are people with iPhones videocaming the parade and u can see their footage thru your iPhone. Think about how a security officer with an iPhone can tap into all the security cameras at a store no matter where he is.

5. iRemote. When your iPhone rings and you are at home and have an AppleTV dvr, then have the caller id appear on the screen. iPhone and AppleTV should be able to communicate with each other out of the box. This is almost the same as what Time Warner Cable does thru their cable and digital phone services. When your digital phone rings at home, the caller id is shown on the screen. Plus you can browse thru your phone's call log on your TV. You should be able to do the same call log browsing on the AppleTV. In addition, you should be able to use the AppleTV as another interface to all your functionality on your iPhone. In other words, just use your AppleTV to view everything on your iPhone, except you won't be able to use your fingers to navigate, but rather u will need to use your AppleTV remote control. This way u won't have to go find your iPhone when u are watching TV. Just answer the call on your AppleTV. The show u r watching will be muted, while u take the call or listen to your messages.

To carry the AppleTV and iPhone integration a bit further, imagine this. Some commercials have a website and a phone number that appear on your TV. Just point and click on a phone number with your AppleTV remote and the iPhone will auto-dial the number so u can start talking right away. Or click on a website url appearing on your TV and the iPhone will auto-navigate there. So u r watching a pizza commercial and decide u want to order pizza. Normally u would go hunting for your phone book to look up the phone number of your local pizza place. Now u will be able to click on a pizza commercial and the iPhone will automatically call your local pizza place so u can place your order right away.

What r your killer apps for the iPhone? Need some inspiration? Try Googling "iPhone Killer App"

ASCII Generator

Convert any text or message into a series of ascii characters such as:

     ___                              ___                  
    /\__\               _____        /\__\                  
   /:/ _/_   ___       /::\  \      /:/ _/_                
  /:/ /\__\ /\__\     /:/\:\  \    /:/ /\__\               
 /:/ /:/  //:/__/    /:/  \:\__\  /:/ /:/ _/_  ___     ___ 
/:/_/:/  //::\  \   /:/__/ \:|__|/:/_/:/ /\__\/\  \   /\__\ 
\:\/:/  / \/\:\  \__\:\  \ /:/  /\:\/:/ /:/  /\:\  \ /:/  /
 \::/__/   ~~\:\/\__\\:\  /:/  /  \::/_/:/  /  \:\  /:/  / 
  \:\  \      \::/  / \:\/:/  /    \:\/:/  /    \:\/:/  /  
   \:\__\     /:/  /   \::/  /      \::/  /      \::/  /    
    \/__/     \/__/     \/__/        \/__/        \/__/    

ACII Generator

Pack Your Javascript

By "packing" your javascript you can reduce the size of a .js file and obfuscate its code for peeping eyes. Here are some packers:
Dean Edward's
Dojo ShrinkSafe
JSMin

To Backup or Not

2007 could be the year of the backup. There are those who currently backup their hard drives and those who are going to backup their drives. Here are three services to help your online backup endeavors.

http://mozy.com/
https://www.carbonite.com/
https://www.mediamax.com/

Here is David Pogue's podcast about online storage backups

Vosky Still In The News

Don't forget to use a Vosky device to connect your home's landline phones thru Skype. This way you can dump your home phone service and go thru the free Skype international service. The Vosky device will make your landline phones ring whenever there is a call, as long as your computer and broadband internet access are on. You can also place a call from any of your landline phones via the Vosky device via Skype.

There are various reviews/videos about Vosky at:
http://www.vosky.com/pressreviews.php

Need HTML....now?

Do you need to convert your design to HTML asap? No sweat. In about 8 hours you can have it done, professionally and with CSS. And very affordable!

PSD2HTML.com

You 2.0

It is really all about you, what you can do, that makes Web 2.0 possible. You are so significant that Time magazine named you the person of the year. And you have so much more potential.

Time's Person of the Year: You
You change the World 2.0

Web Developer's References

The Web Developer's List of Resources:

devlisting.com

Not receiving gifts this Christmas?

Not receiving gifts this Christmas? Don't feel bad. Now you can watch other people open their gifts so at least you can say you did (virtually) open a brand new PS3.

unbox.it
unboxing.com

Free Templates 4 Your Blogspot

If you have a blog on Blogger.com then here are some additional free templates you can use:

blogger-templates.blogspot.com

Standard Icons 4 Your Site

Designing your own website? Use these icons, which are being pushed as standard icons for all imaginable actions, properties, etc that may be found on a website.

Tango Icon Gallery
Nerd Business

Host Your Images 4 Free!

No need to register or pay:
http://www.imageshack.us
http://pixup.xpuser.net
http://xs.to
http://www.mytempdir.com/
http://www.imgtank.com
http://www.imagevenue.com
http://tinypic.com
http://www.imgspot.com/
http://www.2and2.net/index.php?i=upload
http://www.allyoucanupload.com
http://pix.nofrag.com
http://www.putfile.com/
http://www.ihostphotos.com/index.php
http://www.pixpond.com/
http://www.imgspot.com/
http://www.uploadyourimages.com/
http://www.parkyourpic.com/
http://www.uploadtemple.com/
http://www.picsplace.to/
http://www.myimagedepot.com/
http://uploadpixels.com
http://www.dateihosting.de
http://www.bilder-hosting.de

I got this list from:
blogger-templates.blogspot.com

Pay-per-click: Old School Advertising

There is a new way of paying for ads and is gaining popularity. It's called pay-per-action, pay-per-performance, or pay-per-sell. The concept is trivial. An advertiser pays for an ad whenever a user buys the item advertised, not when a user clicks on the ad.

For a consumer, this means more relevant search results and less-expensive items shown first, because the ads can make money for the advertising agency only when the consumer buys the items.

Some ad agency websites using this concept to sell ad space:
Jellyfish.com, TheFind.com and MyTriggers.com

Read the NYT review:
As Ad Costs Rise, a Move to Challenge Pay-Per-Click

Fix Your Site With the Right DOCTYPE!

One of the best articles I've read describing what a doctype is. You will need to use one to render your code in the latest browser support.

DOCTYPES

Videos 2 Customize Your Windows

Your online video tutorials blog. VirtualTweak is all about Windows tips,tricks & how to do guide.

VirtualTweak.com

"How To" Videos

This new service aims to gather all the how-to videos so anyone can learn anything they wish simply by watching a free video.

Visuarios.com

What is Web 3.0?

The New York Times has an interesting article describing it as the semantic web, where all the connected data has meaning. It will gather all the user reviews, rankings, blogs, etc to answer such questions as: "I'm looking for a warm place to vacation and I have a budget of $3,000. Oh, and I have 4 young kids."

Entrepreneurs See a Web Guided by Common Sense

Transumers: I Want Change

Transumers are consumers who always want something new and get tired of seeing the same thing all the time. They want to change the look of something. Take for example rental gardens, which will change out your garden accessories, like plants and planters, every few months. Watch out for this growing trend to be extended to other areas.

Rental Gardens
Transumers Review

Help 4 Developers: Amazon

Amazon wants to use their experience running efficient, gigantic e-commerce infrastructures and extending these services to developers. Sounds to me like all e-commerce developers could benefit from this and save money.

Amazon

Getting Things Done

A must read for learning how to get done all those things bottled up in your mind.

GTD

The Habits of Highly Effective Web 2.0 Sites

Good article on what constitutes a Web 2.0 site

Web 2.0

Digitize Your Video Tapes 4 Cheap

If u have video tapes that need to be digitized, don't waste your own time trying to do it the slow way. Just pay these people to do it for u for $5 per tape. Send your video tapes to stashSpace for processing and loading into your stash. That means u can store and share your videos online and order DVDs, etc.

stashSpace.com

Like Talking to Strangers?

It's common to start a conversation with a stranger at a bus stop, or while waiting in line at an amusement park. Now you can strike up a conversation with anyone on the same website you are browsing. It could be any website, so long as you both are currently there. That means you already share something in common: the fact you are visiting the website at the same time. So you must share some kind of similar interests. I bet it would be easy to strike up a conversation under the circumstances. You may be able to mutually help each other in some manner.

Zweitgeist.com

Best Shopping Help Ever

Here's the scene. I am at a mall and I see some shoes I like but the price is too high. I pull out my camera phone and upload a picture of the shoes to like.com, along with my current GPS location or zip code. In response I get a localized list of merchants who carry similar shoes, even their current prices. Some are even at the same mall I'm at. Now I know exactly where to shop at next.

I personally have a real need for this because this often happens to me while shopping. I hate wasting my time trying to find a similar product in another store. This new service presently only works online, not over a phone. But just wait a moment; it's coming.

Like.com

What's Happening on eBay?

Can't keep up with what's popular on eBay? Clueless about eBay? This service keeps track of the most popular items in different categories over the last two weeks. That way you can buy what's hot and remain clued in. Want to sell something on eBay but don't know what? Use eBay Pop to help you track trends and target the right products to sell.

BTW, if you are into AJAX, they have a cool interface.

eBay Pop

Online File Conversions Services

No need to download and install any software. Just browse to your file, choose which format you want to convert to, submit your email address and wait. You'll get  a link to your new file.

Zamzar.com
Media-convert.com
Review at Techcrunch

Widgets, Web Services, APIs

There are more companies offering to help you build your own web APIs, widgets, or web services. Now you don't have to hire a programmer. Just let these companies do all the coding for you.
Check out all the links on this article:
TechCrunch: Mashery

Alternative Content Viewers/Deliverers

Here is a small list of browser-alternative methods of delivering or viewing content.
http://earthcode.com

The New York Times has a new newspaper reader that is a windows app which displays the original format of the paper version and works offline.
http://www.basement.org

Flash Paper is also a great tool to display your content. Check out the online catalogs available at:
http://orientaltrading.com

Ultimate Illusions and Paradoxes

This site contains many hard to believe illusions.

ScientificPsychic.com

Add-Ons for Firefox 2

Now that you've installed the new Firefox 2, it's time to make it really shine with these cool plugins.
Firefox Add-ons

Interesting Concept

This new dating service has an interesting concept that can be applied to other types of services or products. It allows you to view photos of other individuals so you can categorize them as yes, no, or maybe, as possible dates for yourself. You fill up your little black book with those photos you've chosen as "yes, or maybe". Those you've selected as yes then see a photo of you and if they are interested then you both can contact each other.

I just like the concept of giving each user a little black book with photos and corresponding personal info.

Check it out at:
YesNoMayb.com

Help For Scrabble

Do u like the game of Scrabble? Then here is some help. Just type in the letters u have on hand and it will respond with a list of possible words formed by those letters. While playing, take a break and secretly go to your computer to this site:
MoreWords.com