How 'e' are you? A new research project that aims to track how people are using the internet. The site includes an e-test that calculates a user's e-score (0 - 100), places them in an e-group and then suggests sites that they might be interested in visiting next. Over 8,000 people have already taken the test with an average score of 48.
The site's very simple, but includes some great features built by those clever guys at Small Fry. For every completed survey we're giving 5p to Childnet - the charity that works to make the internet a safer place for children.
We've also built our first widget to promote the site - available through widgetbox - if you download the widget it generates an average score for all users that have taken the test from your site. You can see the average score of everyone that's taken the test from here - currently 81 - let's see if it goes up or down.
Hope you like the site, we're really proud of it, we've been talking about it for ages and developing it here and there between other projects, I'll keep you posted about interesting findings, be good to hear some feedback / suggestions.
Monday, August 27, 2007
MyRealPlace is the complete, realty resource for buyers, sellers, investors and realty professionals alike
MyRealPlace is the complete, realty resource for buyers, sellers, investors and realty professionals alike. We exist to help you buy and sell properties, to learn about trends in your area, to ask questions of the professionals, to search out realty professionals and to provide a meeting place where you can engage with each other. Fundamentally, we are here to give you a voice.
We are not licensed Realtors and nor will we ever be. We simply provide a place where you have access to tools and information that allow you to make informed descions in the real estate process.
This is Your Community, this is Your Real Place.
More at:http://myrealplace.com/
We are not licensed Realtors and nor will we ever be. We simply provide a place where you have access to tools and information that allow you to make informed descions in the real estate process.
This is Your Community, this is Your Real Place.
More at:http://myrealplace.com/
Unusual Business Idea
Consumers who want the luxury of having a second home at the beach or in the mountains, but don't have the money to plunk down on the choicest properties, now have an appealing alternative: half ownership. Like other shared ownership ventures, Halfshare.com gives customers the chance to get a piece of the good life, but at a much lower cost. Unlike traditional timeshares, which pioneered the concept of fractional ownership, Halfshare.com buyers aren't purchasing time in a hotel or resort, but an actual home—and all the benefits that go with owning it. Along with sharing costs, buyers share profits if the value goes up. And depending on the terms both owners agree to, the property may generate rental income, too.
Getting started is as easy as logging onto Halfshare.com, where members can browse listings of available properties throughout North America. Halfshare.com can match them with other prospective buyers based on tastes, backgrounds, interests, hobbies and lifestyles through the Buyer Match Plan. Potential co-owners can arrange to meet one another online, by phone or in person to determine if they’d make a good match. Once buyers select a property, Halfshare.com's Tenants-in-Common Agreement takes care of all the details, formalizing legal concerns and each owner’s rights. “It spells out what is expected in terms of financial arrangements, seasonal time sharing, rental revenues, re-sale, property maintenance and repair, among other pertinent details.”
Although the real estate market is currently in a bit of a slump, demand for sandy beaches, mountain air, cultural attractions and picturesque scenery isn’t likely to wane any time soon. Which means that making vacation homes affordable, fraction by fraction, could be a worthwhile start-up in almost any region frequented by tourists looking to make themselves at home.
more at:http://www.halfshare.com/
Getting started is as easy as logging onto Halfshare.com, where members can browse listings of available properties throughout North America. Halfshare.com can match them with other prospective buyers based on tastes, backgrounds, interests, hobbies and lifestyles through the Buyer Match Plan. Potential co-owners can arrange to meet one another online, by phone or in person to determine if they’d make a good match. Once buyers select a property, Halfshare.com's Tenants-in-Common Agreement takes care of all the details, formalizing legal concerns and each owner’s rights. “It spells out what is expected in terms of financial arrangements, seasonal time sharing, rental revenues, re-sale, property maintenance and repair, among other pertinent details.”
Although the real estate market is currently in a bit of a slump, demand for sandy beaches, mountain air, cultural attractions and picturesque scenery isn’t likely to wane any time soon. Which means that making vacation homes affordable, fraction by fraction, could be a worthwhile start-up in almost any region frequented by tourists looking to make themselves at home.
more at:http://www.halfshare.com/
Google Phone Or G-Phone
Talk of a possible Google phone kicked up again Friday with new rumors coming out of India that the phone could be launched within two weeks.
Rediff.com reported that Google is in talks with two of the three top mobile providers in India, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar, to offer the new "Gphone." The article cites unnamed sources who say the phone will also be launched simultaneously in the U.S. and Europe. The only remaining hurdle in the U.S., the story said, is approval from the Federal Communications Commission, which must certify any wireless device sold in the U.S.
Google isn't commenting on the rumors, saying in a statement that the company "is committed to providing users with access to the world's information, and mobile becomes more important to those efforts every day."
Before you get too excited and start queuing up somewhere for one of these phones, let me explain why I think the rumors are bogus. For one, Google has never actually confirmed that it's working on building its own handset. Even though it sounds really cool and sexy for the company to pull an "Apple" by building its own hardware, it just doesn't fit into Google's business model, which is to develop software applications for the Web as a way to sell more advertising.
Google executives, including Chris Sacca, head of special initiatives at Google, have said publicly that they think there is plenty of competition and innovation in the handset market.
"I think there is a healthy environment of competition and innovation in the device market worldwide," Sacca said in an interview with CNET News.com last month. "It's just the channel that discourages that kind of innovation here in the U.S."
And just this week, Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience, showed off how well Google's applications worked on her iPhone. So I just don't see any reason why Google would want to build an "iPhone-killer."
That said, there's no question Google is hot for mobile. The company has introduced several new mobile products this year. And CEO Eric Schmidt recently said the company will likely participate in the upcoming 700MHz spectrum auction early in 2008. Exactly what it will do with the spectrum if its wins licenses is unknown.
I think what's more likely is that Google is working with a hardware partner to develop a smart phone that's optimized and preloaded with lots of Google applications. My guess is that the supposed prototypes that The Wall Street Journal and others have mentioned in recent articles may be mockups the company has developed with partners to demonstrate and test new applications.
So could a Google-powered device made by unknown hardware partners really be ready for launch in two weeks? I think that's probably a little too soon. I checked the FCC Web site Friday and Google has not registered any product to be tested with the FCC. Of course, if Google is working with a partner, as I have suggested above, the phone could be registered in the FCC files under a different company's name.
More at:http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/aug/24gphone.htm
Rediff.com reported that Google is in talks with two of the three top mobile providers in India, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar, to offer the new "Gphone." The article cites unnamed sources who say the phone will also be launched simultaneously in the U.S. and Europe. The only remaining hurdle in the U.S., the story said, is approval from the Federal Communications Commission, which must certify any wireless device sold in the U.S.
Google isn't commenting on the rumors, saying in a statement that the company "is committed to providing users with access to the world's information, and mobile becomes more important to those efforts every day."
Before you get too excited and start queuing up somewhere for one of these phones, let me explain why I think the rumors are bogus. For one, Google has never actually confirmed that it's working on building its own handset. Even though it sounds really cool and sexy for the company to pull an "Apple" by building its own hardware, it just doesn't fit into Google's business model, which is to develop software applications for the Web as a way to sell more advertising.
Google executives, including Chris Sacca, head of special initiatives at Google, have said publicly that they think there is plenty of competition and innovation in the handset market.
"I think there is a healthy environment of competition and innovation in the device market worldwide," Sacca said in an interview with CNET News.com last month. "It's just the channel that discourages that kind of innovation here in the U.S."
And just this week, Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience, showed off how well Google's applications worked on her iPhone. So I just don't see any reason why Google would want to build an "iPhone-killer."
That said, there's no question Google is hot for mobile. The company has introduced several new mobile products this year. And CEO Eric Schmidt recently said the company will likely participate in the upcoming 700MHz spectrum auction early in 2008. Exactly what it will do with the spectrum if its wins licenses is unknown.
I think what's more likely is that Google is working with a hardware partner to develop a smart phone that's optimized and preloaded with lots of Google applications. My guess is that the supposed prototypes that The Wall Street Journal and others have mentioned in recent articles may be mockups the company has developed with partners to demonstrate and test new applications.
So could a Google-powered device made by unknown hardware partners really be ready for launch in two weeks? I think that's probably a little too soon. I checked the FCC Web site Friday and Google has not registered any product to be tested with the FCC. Of course, if Google is working with a partner, as I have suggested above, the phone could be registered in the FCC files under a different company's name.
More at:http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/aug/24gphone.htm
Best4c is a new chart design application that provides a variety of options for many of your chart-creation needs
Best4c is a new chart design application that provides a variety of options for many of your chart-creation needs.
Offering tools for creating flow charts, network charts, and home and office layout designs. As a basic tool, Best4c works well. Its drag’n'drop capabilities make the creation of a chart or layout easy, and other basic functions such as resizing are intuitive. Other features are less intuitive, especially for the creation of a flow chart, where most tools will have more automated features for creating trees, instead of all manual connections that need to be made. The chart creation tools are more useful than the home and office layout options, as the system provided by Best4c is not all inclusive for furnishing designs. That being said, there are no options for room ratio sizing, and limited options for furniture, so you’ll do best by using tools like MyDesignIn and FloorPlanner for home design.
There are also no networking options for Best4c, as it operates more like a desktop application than a collaborative tool, though charts can be shared. This also means you’ll need to go to the “Open file” tool in order to access your previous charts, or use the URL provided upon saving a chart in order to access individual charts later. Nevertheless, you’ll be hard pressed to find other users’ charts (some are shown on the homepage), and there are no profiles for seeing all of a user’s public designs. Should Best4c decide to add in more networking options, having the ability to search, view, share and customize others’ charts would come in handy.
More at:http://www.best4c.com/
Offering tools for creating flow charts, network charts, and home and office layout designs. As a basic tool, Best4c works well. Its drag’n'drop capabilities make the creation of a chart or layout easy, and other basic functions such as resizing are intuitive. Other features are less intuitive, especially for the creation of a flow chart, where most tools will have more automated features for creating trees, instead of all manual connections that need to be made. The chart creation tools are more useful than the home and office layout options, as the system provided by Best4c is not all inclusive for furnishing designs. That being said, there are no options for room ratio sizing, and limited options for furniture, so you’ll do best by using tools like MyDesignIn and FloorPlanner for home design.
There are also no networking options for Best4c, as it operates more like a desktop application than a collaborative tool, though charts can be shared. This also means you’ll need to go to the “Open file” tool in order to access your previous charts, or use the URL provided upon saving a chart in order to access individual charts later. Nevertheless, you’ll be hard pressed to find other users’ charts (some are shown on the homepage), and there are no profiles for seeing all of a user’s public designs. Should Best4c decide to add in more networking options, having the ability to search, view, share and customize others’ charts would come in handy.
More at:http://www.best4c.com/
How To Sketch Face With Flashface
Flashface is a site for those people where visitors can piece together archaic looking yet accurate facial features to form a face. It seems to be in the early stages of graphic development with tiny words and black and white features. The lack of color and pizzazz is off-putting but the truth is that you can make a pretty good police sketch of yourself and people you know. The features that compose the face sketch are: hair, head shape, hairline, eyebrows, eyewear, eyes, nose, mustache, mouth, chin, and beard. In each category there are between thirty and sixty options, which is barely enough to choose a feature that resembles the person you are trying to create. The site has very few preference options but once a face is formed users can save and print the face as well as view the faces in the guestbook. Flashface is a useful site for temporarily curing boredom and sketching a criminal. If Flashface introduced another version with color, more feature options, and way to link the sketch to a blog or website, it could really take off.
More at:http://flashface.ctapt.de/
More at:http://flashface.ctapt.de/
The BUILDhardlink.com site encourages users to build hardlinks for personal or business use
The BUILDhardlink.com site encourages users to build hardlinks for personal or business use and add them to an Open Use Content database that can be freely accessed by anyone with an Internet enabled cell phone.
Just as a hyperlink takes you from web page to web page, a hardlink takes you from a physical object to a data store of information about that object in the form of pictures and text.Physical hyperlinking or hardlinking is a concept that is in the very early stages of emergence in most parts of the world. The way it has traditionally worked is you take a picture of a barcode (QR Code) with your phone camera as might be found on some object, say a movie poster. The result is your phones browser redirects to information about that object.
More at:http://www.buildhardlink.com/
Just as a hyperlink takes you from web page to web page, a hardlink takes you from a physical object to a data store of information about that object in the form of pictures and text.Physical hyperlinking or hardlinking is a concept that is in the very early stages of emergence in most parts of the world. The way it has traditionally worked is you take a picture of a barcode (QR Code) with your phone camera as might be found on some object, say a movie poster. The result is your phones browser redirects to information about that object.
More at:http://www.buildhardlink.com/
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