More Crowdfunding

Here are more players, besides Kickstarter.com

Profounder.com

Quirky.com

IndieGoGo.com

PeerBackers.com

Funding For Advertising Upstarts

Some money for those interested in a new way of doing advertising.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/business/media/15adco.html

Chirply Greeting Cards

Chirply.com is something like Threadless.com for paper cards. Winning designs get printed and sold; designers get paid. The designers whose ideas collect the most votes are awarded a $300 prize, plus an additional 10 cents for each item that is printed with their design.

Y Cominator Backed Chirply is Threadless for Paper Goods

Monitor Your Website

Just one of probably many website monitoring services, UpTrends.com probes your site every 30 minutes and sends you the results via email, for free. Of course they have other paid services with a shorter probing interval.

Mobile Photo Sharing

Two services to keep watch on for sharing mobile photos and adding special effects:

PicPlz.com

Instagr.am

Cimbal: Alternative Payments

Another alternative payments player. This one uses your cellphone to make payments for online/offline purchases.

Cimbal.com

ZeeWee: Free HTML5 Apps

ZeeWee.com offers free HTML5 web apps for your iPhone, iPod, and iPad.

http://j.mp/gkVRP7

Social Micropayments for Rewards

These two services are using social micropayments to reward or support your favorite online contributors by enabling you to reward them tiny amounts.

Flattr.com

Rewrd.com

Zamzar File Conversions

Any file, any type can be converted to another type.

http://www.zamzar.com/

Search By Color

Glancely.com is a very interesting service that currently works with Etsy.com but may soon work with others. Their service will search for a specified product within a specified color range and the results show a spectrum of matching products.

TechCrunch review

Build Your Own Web App

DHTMLx.com

DHTMLX Touch is an HTML5-based JavaScript library for building mobile web applications. It's not just a set of UI widgets, but a complete framework that allows you to create eye-catching, cross-platform web applications for mobile and touch-screen devices.

The framework is compatible with the major web browsers for mobile platforms. Applications built with DHTMLX Touch will run smoothly on iPad, iPhone, Android-based smartphones, and other popular devices.

SimilarSites.com

Looking for similar sites to some website? I got some interesting results when I searched for "befunky" which is a site for adding special effects to photos.

SimilarSites.com

Protect Your Website

Protect your website from profanity by filtering all the text content via an API from WebPurify.com

Mobile Payments To Explode Globally

Mobile payment systems are about to surge in users across the globe.

NYT's Mobile Banking in the Emerging World

Some of the mentioned mobile payment providers:

Telefónica - Latin America

Globe - Philippines

Smart - Philippines

Orange - Africa

Vodafone Pesa - Africa

Gemalto - Latin America, Middle East, India

Trivnet - Latin America, Middle East, India

Telenor Easypaisa - Pakistan

Book Me Online

This is an awesome service to show your schedule availability and it ties into your existing calendars like Google Calendar, Lotus Notes, Apple iCal, etc.

Tungle.me

The other awesome booking service I've seen is Bookd.com but it is catered more to the services industry.

Photo-Sharing is Growing

Photo-sharing services are growing in number and popularity.

Photo-Sharing Is The Next Evolution Of Social

Instagram

Picplz

Path

DailyBooth

Got Too Many Gift Cards?

If you received too many gift cards this holiday season, you might want to sell or trade them online.

CardPool.com

PlasticJungle.com

Build Your Own Mobile App

Here is a growing list of mobile app builders you can use to make your own mobile app.

MobileRoadie.com

AppBreeder.com

GetCS.com

SwebApps.com

Sencha.com

PhoneGap.com

PyxisMobile.com

Google App Inventor

How Was GPS Invented?

If you are interested in how our modern day GPS technology was invented, watch this short video.

Where Good Ideas Come From

TED: Ideas Worth Spreading

These are some of the best talks on the planet.

TED.com
Introduction to TED

Alternative Payments

Here are more alternative payments options for customers without credit (cards).

PayNearMe.com

GreenDot.com

Review of PayNearMe

Review of Green Dot

Among others, Rixty and Coinstar offer similar services.

500 Startups

These might be the coolest super-angel investors on the planet. Dave McClure, the founder, seems to know what he's talking about. I've been reading about him on Fast Company and it's very good stuff. Keep an eye on them if you have a great idea.

500Startups.com

Look in Wikipedia for other super-angels.

The Andreessen Horowitz Fund

Seems like this fund in Silicon Valley would be good to pursue because they will educate you to be a great CEO.

Andreessen Horowitz
NYT's Andreessen Starts 2nd Fund to Invest in Tech Start-Ups

The One Sentence Pitch

Here is the perfect template for making your own one sentence pitch, to be ready for when you bump into that multi-millionaire.

Madlibs For Pitches: How To Perfect The One Sentence Pitch

It was constructed by the Founder Institute's Adeo Ressi

The sFund

I hope I can use the sFund some day.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/kleiner-perkins-and-partners-create-250-million-social-fund/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Excerpt from NYT: Kleiner is creating the sFund at a time when investing in social is hardly new. Several prominent venture capital firms like Accel Partners, Greylock Partners, Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures and others, have been heavy investors in social start-ups. And several companies, like the game makers Playfish and Playdom, have already been sold for hundreds of millions of dollars.

Touch Books for the Little Ones

Upcoming touch books for the iPhone and iPad.

http://touchoo.com/

Webydo: From PSD to HTML

You might want to keep track of this upcoming service.

It takes a PSD and generates all the HTML, less tables  - meaning CSS-style layout.

Pass it along to your peers or otherwise keep them grinding at the mill the old way.

http://www.webydo.com/

My Kids Need Drawing Pad

A drawing pad for little picassos built as an iPad app. This is exactly what my kids need.

DrawingPadApp.com
NYT review

myGengo: Translation API

A service called myGengo.com has an API for human-powered translations. I'm not sure what that all means but this is one service to keep track of.

TechCrunch news

TechCrunch review

Location-Based Advertising

There are some big players involved in this arena and here is a small list of them to help you keep up.

First are the actual providers of the location-based check-in data:

1. Foursquare
2. Facebook Places
3. Twitter
4. Gowalla

Then there are the ad-campaign services that use the above data to pinpoint your marketing:

1. Context Optional, 
2. SnackSquare, 
3. Geotoko, 
4. Sprout Social 
5. PlacePunch

PeopleSmart: Look for Anyone

The new way to look for anyone is to use PeopleSmart.com

U Like Clear Wireless?

So u like Clear's 2 year commitment and excellent broadband service ey?

Well once my contract runs out with Clear, look at what I can get now:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/02/technology/personaltech/02pogue.html

The Virgin Mobile MiFi.....about the size of a credit card.

$40 a month, no contract, unlimited data

FutureAdvisor: Invest Like This

If you currently have a 401K and other investments and are confused or clueless about how best to allocate your investments and get the most bang for the buck, here is a new service who can help. Instead of hiring your own investment adviser, just use FutureAdvisor.com.

TechCrunch review

5Min and Answers

Answers.com has teamed up with 5Min.com to show appropriate videos for every question that is asked. I hadn't heard of 5Min before but they have a ton of videos and worth remembering.

TinyChat With Real-time Translation

This nifty chat system is fully browser-based (no download required) and features real-time language translations so people you chat with don't have to chat in your language for you to understand.

http://tinychat.com/

Grasshopper

Grasshopper.com pitches itself as the entrepreneur's phone system. They may be right.

Medical Industry Pioneers

Here is a list of some innovators in the medical industry. By reading about them you will either partner with them, know who your competitors are, or learn something from them for your benefit.

http://www.tech50.org/companies.html

Cool Video Messages

Send a cool video message of your choice to get your point across and to make a good impression.

Mogreet.com

Social Networking Training for Kids?

Do kids need help stepping up to a social network like Facebook? Some people think so, and they've come up with Togetherville.com to help them learn some valuable skills before embarking onto a full-blown social networking site.

For Children, A Social Nework With Training Wheels

Online Bookings

If you service needs to take online bookings from your customers, here are some service providers I found:

Bookd.com
Rezgo.com
Clickbook.net
Libersybooking.nl

No Cash, No Problem

If you sell anything and are not currently accepting credit card payments, you may soon be in luck. New technologies will make it very easy for anyone with a smartphone to accept credit cards wherever they may be about.

Cellphone Payments Offer Alternatives To Cash

Here is one example:
SquareUp.com

Things To Do With A Cassette

Here are some interesting things happening with the old cassette tapes. It is interesting to me to know how creative people can get.

Hitting Rewind On The Cassette Tape

Your Own Field Agents

Post a quick job for someone who owns an iPhone. Say you need to find out the price of a product at a store down from where you are. Have someone else do that for you and pay them. Or say you have a new service and need some on-site help convincing the biz manager, just post and see if anyone is nearby to help you.
FreeAgent.net
NYT's An App That Pays

Ready To Move To The Cloud?

Companies are slowly migrating their apps and data to the cloud. Are you getting ready to do the same? Here is some news about this migration.

Companies Slowly Join Cloud-Computing

Mini-Tasks get Mini-Pay

If you have some small tasks to get done, checkout these services that pair up providers with seekers. If you have only $5 to spare, there are plenty of things people are willing to do for that. For example, one person will send out a tweet about your site to his 35,000 followers.

Fiverr.com
Springwise review of fiverr

ShortTask.com
Springwise review of ShortTask

MyTown: Check-in Game

Very interesting how some services are gaining traction that essentially make a "game" out of "checking into" real places, like restaurants, salons, etc. MyTown is one such game. I'm not sure how it all works yet. I hope to check it out soon.

Booyah! MyTown hits 1 million users before Foursquare or Gowalla

Kwedit: Do You Promise To Pay?

This is a very serious player and awesome concept in the online payment industry. I think these people have a winning concept. I really like the fact anyone can make their payments by going to a 7-11, mailing it in, or via the "pass the duck" feature.

TechCrunch Review
Kwedit.com

Practice Storytelling

This is an awesome tool to get kids to be creative with telling stories. It is a set of cards that come in two types. You pull one card of each type. The first is a character, while the second is a situation. For example, "a cashier at a dollar store" may be the first card, and "who is afraid of getting old" is the second card. The person then proceeds to tell the story based on this character and situation. Two rules: the character must change in some way from beginning to end. The character must never die.

The Storymatic

Online Language Learning

The NYT put out some useful online resources for learning a new language. I really need to give this a try if I ever want to get beyond my English and Spanish.

The Web Way to Learn a Language

No Credit Card, No Problem

If your intended clients have only cash and no credit cards, you really need to start using Rixty.com. For some odd reason, they have a slightly different website at Rixty.net.

Apparently, Rixty is growing according to the latest round of financing talked about at TechCrunch.

Android/iPhone Apps Directories

Check out these directories for apps for your Android or iPhone as discussed in the NYT's story Want New Apps for Your Android or iPhone? Here Are the Best Directories

Top Android App Directories:
Android.com
Androidapps360.com
Androlib.com
Mplayit.com

Top iPhone App Directories:
AppAdvice.com
Appolicious.com
Yappler.com
Apptism.com
Mplayit.com

The Sixth Sense

You may have seen part of this technology before, where a projector is used to cast a working, digital keyboard onto a surface, so that one would no longer need a physical keyboard but just an image of one. This guy Pranav Mistry make his own version of this and shows you so many different applications for it that it could blow your mind away.

The Thrilling Potential of 'SixthSense' Technology

Still Need Cable TV?

Read this story about how this couple got rid of their cable service and aren't missing much:

Cable Freedom Is A Click Away

Useful jQuery Tips for Select Lists

If you are into using jQuery and need to manage select lists, here are some really useful tips.

http://www.myphpetc.com/2009/03/jquery-select-elements-tips-and-tricks.html

By the way, I wrote my own routine for using an array to save a select list and its selected index when the page loads:

//Save all initial options
    var saveselect = new Array();
    $('#myselect option').each(function() {
        saveselect[this.value] = this.text;
    });
    //Save inital selected index
    var saveindex = $("#myselect option").index($("#myselect option:selected"));

Voice to Text

I may have written about this before but since the blog search is not working on my blog, it would take me a long while to find that post. Nonetheless, it is worth repeating.

These services are apparently really good and perhaps cheap at converting voice calls into transcribed text. Read all about them here:

SpinVox.com
PhoneTag.com
DiTech's PhoneTag Now Works Behind Your Company's Firewall
SimulScribe Signs Exclusive $17 Million Partnership Agreement With Ditech Networks

Nice Facebook Shopping Cart

This is a very nice shopping cart meant to work with any site, but in particular Facebook. In fact, they are set to unveil a completely new platform of e-commerce for Facebook.

Payvment.com

TechCrunch's review

Video Sites for Kids

This NYT story mentions some very good sources of videos and other good stuff safe for kids.

How to Provide Parental Guidance on Web Video for Children

Some of the sites mentioned are:
Kabillion.com
Kidzui.com
Kideos.com
Totlol.com
Zuitube.com

Very Interesting: Buzzd

This is a very interesting service. It seems it is a step above iAte.com

Read the review here:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/01/buzzd-is-an-iphone-app-built-for-party-crashing/

Buzzd.com

Note that Twitter has lots of interesting data available for "free". You just need to use their API to gather it, analyze it, and display it.

I think Twitter does have limitations on API requests per time period.

I wonder what we could do with Twitter data?

Artwiculate

Build up your vocabulary with this Twitter integrated service.

Artwiculate.com

TwitDraw

This service has lots of potential. It is a simple drawing program with which to draw and to easily send to your twitter wall. I especially like the concept of the Graffiti Chain.

TwitDraw.com

Electric Crafts

Good inspiration from a crafter who is using LEDs, motors, wires, batteries, etc. to create unique crafts.

Home Crafts Get Wired

FotoMoto

If  you have lots of photos on your website and need a quick way to add a shopping cart to sell your photos and have them delivered to your buyers, then use FotoMoto.com to get it done fast and easy.

3D Photo Prints

Your photo prints can now be in 3D.

Check out the awesome technology from Snapily.com
Great review at NTY's story entitled Your Photo Prints, Now in 3-D

Twitter-ify Your Biz

These days many mom and pop businesses are starting to use Twitter to alert their faithful customers about new deals, even the current location of those businesses on wheels, like street vendors. It is time your biz starts thinking about how to best use your Twitter account. Better yet, sign up for your own Twitter account soon.

NYT's article Mom-and-Pop Operators Turn to Social Media

Look at all the new ways others are using Twitter.
Springwise.com

Groovy: A Real-Time Database

It's a really inspiring concept, to have a real-time database which can accommodate millions of requests per second. That's what Groovy is aiming to do. Rather than to rely on querying a database, the database itself will push out any changes occurring in real-time. They call it the SQL Switch.

GroovyCorp.com
TechCrunch's review

iText: Generate Dynamic PDFs

I found out one of my favorite resource for developers, called Pragmatic Programmer, uses iText to add the dynamic footer at the bottom of each pdf. If you have ever bought a pdf book from them you will notice they add your name and address to every pdf you buy. iText is pretty cool.

The Twitter Guidebook

I recently started up again using Twitter because now I have a real business need for it. So I stumbled upon this resource of information about using Twitter. I will need to master some of the stuff talked about there.

Twitter Guide Book

Teenage Entrepreneurs Are Coming!

Here comes the mass of teenagers who want to do their work and get paid for doing their own thing. It's interesting to read about what they are doing or planning to do. Read NYT's story entitled Teenagers Are Building Their Own Job Engine.

One such venture mentioned is WorkInMyRoom.com

DoNanza: Multiple Freelance Searching

Donanza.com combines all search results from various gig sites all into one. In other words, when searching for a job, just use their service to search all other websites dealing with freelance work. The links point back to the originating website. You can also discover many more freelance sites by looking at the search results.

http://www.donanza.com

Two Appointment Schedulers

I found out about these two services that provide an online scheduling system for appointments, which could be used by massage therapists, dentists, doctors, hairstylists, etc. I have a friend who is a photographer who may be able to use this to book his appointments. One great feature is that BookFresh can integrate with Google Calendar and iCal.

BookFresh.com
Appointment-plus.com
TechCrunch's review

Voice Faster Than Texting?

We all know how long it takes to make a voice call. You have to wait for the tone for someone to pick up or wait for the prompt to leave a message. Texting is so much faster because you just pick up the phone and start texting. Then the receiving party could be busy so you leave a message. To play the message the receiving party needs to navigate through the menus to hear the message.

Enter RebelVox.com. You have to see the video to really get excited about all this. Soon you will be able to pick up the phone and start talking, regardless of whether or not the receiving party is available. To hear a message just pick up the phone and hit your contact. It starts playing instantly. If you notice someone is leaving you a message, you can answer the call and immediately get connected to carry on the conversation.

The Mobile Payments War

It looks like the battlefield is getting filled up quickly and the action is very brutal in the mobile payments world.

CNET covers this story quite well.

The NYT also does a good job.

Also read the NYT Bits blog

Some of the mentioned mobile payments services are:
Boku.com
BillingRevolution.com
Zong.com
Obopay.com

Boku Mobile Payments

It looks like Boku.com has a better worldwide coverage than Obopay.com for sending and accepting mobile payments.

Check out Boku's Coverage

Vumber: Virtual Phone Number

I need a virtual phone number because I often change my cell carrier and cell phone number. So whenever I get my business cards printed I want to be able to keep handing them out up to the last one, instead of throwing them away whenever my phone number changes.

Enter Vumber.com. It is the answer to my needs. I can sign up for a phone number in any area code and redirect this vumber to any of my real phone numbers and keep updating it whenever I need. I've been waiting for Google's Grand Central service, but I have never been able to get accepted into their beta program. So now I can try Vumber instead.


Here are some other players:

http://www.tollfreeforwarding.com

Virtual Numbers on About.com

WizeHive: Group Collaboration

This looks like a very promising service for managing a group effort of work. If you have heard of or used Basecamp, you might want to consider this one as well.

WizeHive.com

Wix: Stunning Flash Sites for Free

Create your own Flash-based websites for free using any of these templates. Everything is easy to do with lots of drag-n-drop. The results looking really good. They also have a Premium level for added services like hosting and ad-free.

Wix.com

DIY Sidebars For Firefox

Ever wanted to build your own browser plugins but did have the time to learn all the API? Now there's a much easier way to do this. Mozilla's Jetpack aims to revolutionize the way these things are built. There's some really cool stuff you can do, like loading videos into a sidebar to keep watching them as you continue surfing.

JetPack.MozillaLabs.com
Some cool video demos
TechCrunch's review

Wow! Man's Own Shopper

For those men who hate shopping for clothes for themselves, here is a radical new approach. Now you can have your own personal (female) shopper with which you communicate via Skype. She will take a look at you and listen to all your tastes and dislikes. Then she will send you a box of possible clothes you might like. Buy the ones you want, return the others.

TrunkClub.com
TechCrunch review

An iPhone App 4 Your Band

If you have a band, get your own iPhone app and have your users download it from the Apps Store. Your users will be able to browse and listen to clips of your music. They can also click on a song and go directly to iTunes to purchase it. Your app also integrates your social network so all your iPhone app users can share photos, videos, comments, etc.

So how do you get your own iPhone app for your band? That's where MobileRoadie comes in. Instead of having to hire programmers and telling them what you envision, and paying them by the hour, just let MobileRoadie set you up almost instantly. Pricing is USD 399 to set up the app and then USD 29 per month for up to 1,000 fans; each additional fan costs 1 cent per month.

MobileRoadie.com
Springwise's review

How Modern Students Study

It's so different since I went to college. Back then we didn't even have the internet. These days students have totally different options. Here are a few:

Cramster.com
Koofers.com
SparkNotes.com
CourseHero.com

These and others are names in NYT's article Psst! Need the Answer to No. 7? Click Here.

Also read WSJ's article Do Study Sites Make The Grade?

A Web That Speaks Your Language

This is an interesting article about machines and humans volunteering their time to translate online content for others to be able to read.

NYT's article A Web That Speaks Your Language

One mentioned organization doing this is GlobalVoices.org

DIY Mobile Ads

Are you introducing a new mobile app and want it to be ad-supported? Take a look at this new service with which you can easily integrate ads into your app. They have taken all the headaches out of doing this for you with a developer's toolkit. Now your real job switches to finding the businesses that would like to show their ads in your app. For that just hook up with an ad/marketing firm and let them do the hunting for you.

Medialets.com
Killer Startups review

Coupious - Mobile Coupons Come True

Check it out. This smart app uses your phone's GPS to lookup coupons in your location. Instantly receive them on your phone for redemption.

Coupious.com
Killer Startups review

NearbySocial: Other Facebook Users Near You

Look around you, or better yet let this new app do the looking for you. It will find all other Facebook friends near you at the moment or do a historical search to recall who was around you recently. Pretty cool.

NearbySocial.com
Killer Startup review

iPhone: Your New Price Scanner

Never mind hunting down the price scanners at Target or other store. Just whip out your iPhone loaded with the Red Laser app. Instantly do price comparisons and get all the details off the net.

Red Laser - The First Accurate iPhone Barcode Scanner - Hits The App Store

Build Mobile Apps with PhoneGap

Need to build a mobile application that needs to access GPS, vibration, accelorometer, photos, or contacts info, and you need it to work across phones, like the iPhone, Blackberry, and Android? Then you need to take a look at using PhoneGap.com

Reqall: Modern Sticky Notes

I think I will start using this new service for free and probably upgrade to the $25 per year version when I get hooked on it. To really understand its potential impact on your life, you need to see the demo videos about it.

 

Here is NYT's demo.

Reqall.com

Apple News Sources

I have been more curious about news concerning Apple lately because of all the rumors about the upcoming iPhone 3.0. There are some incredible rumors out there. I hope some of these come true. Here are some Apple news sources I found:

• Tuaw.com


• MacRumors.com


• AppleInsider.com


• MacCast.com

Regex For Dummies

I googled regex for dummies and got these really neat screencasts at a blog called In The Woods. One great reference mentioned there is a nifty regex engine with which to play.

Computational Photography

A new surveillance video camera uses 5 lenses to capture a 180 degree view. The separate images are stitched together by a computer. This is the power of computational photography.

Adobe is also experimenting with it. Here is a snippet from the NYT article "On the Lookout, With a Digital Security Camera."

Kevin Connor, vice president of product management for professional digital imaging at Adobe, says the company is experimenting with a combination of lenses and software to process enough data in one shot, for example, that the focus of the image can be changed after the shutter snaps, something that is now impossible.

"We can capture the light rays in a scene and then later calculate a photo at any focal length," he said. "You can refocus your shot after it is captured."

iPhoney: iPhone Simulator

See how your website and code will look like on an iPhone without owning an iPhone.

http://marketcircle.com/iphoney/

Free Is The New Biz Model

Read this articles about why a recent trend in business models is to offer your core services for free and then charge a premium for some add-on services.

Saying You Can't Compete With Free Is Saying You Can't Compete Period

Free! by Chris Anderson

MagCloud: DIY Magazines

Now you can have a do-it-yourself magazine, thanks to a new technology by Hewlett Packard that makes it cost effective to print just one color copy of a magazine. It will charge 20 cents per page. It is testing the market to see if there is enough demand for this service.

MagCloud.com
NYT review

China's YouTube Equivalent

China's government is blocking access to YouTube.com because it may contain some politically incorrect videos. So what do Chinese people use? Enter Tudou.com. Apparently the government has more control of this Chinese provider.

Academic Earth: Hulu for Higher Ed

The Hulu.com equivalent of videos of higher education lecturers is now available. It is called Academic Earth, and all its content is free.

Check out TechCrunch's review.

HTML Purifier

Do you need to allow your users to be able to embed youtube videos into their pages? Do you want to prevent users from entering in malicious code (such as cross-site scripting)?

HTML Purifier can help.

Kogi: New Use for Twitter

The Taco Trucks Are Coming !!!

What an ingenious use of Twitter. The new Korean taco trucks are roaming around Los Angeles and twittering their followers to let them know where they are stationed at the moment.

Springwise Review
KogiBBQ.com

20 FREE PHP Components & Tutorials

Tricks of the trade tools for PHP.

20 FREE PHP Components and Tutorials

Microsoft's Vision of the Future

Very good ideas for the future coming from Microsoft. Now it is up to them to implement them. They have a very good chance of accomplishing it.

This is the Microsoft I want to see.

ScreenDash: Share any Screen Capture

Pretty neat tool, although there various comments point to other similar services.

ScreenDash.com
Review