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