Kapitall – When I was younger, I used to invest in stocks, and took advantage of Yahoo! Finance to help me organize my portfolio. I was quite satisfied with it; it was reliable, effective, and easy to use. Today I don’t do much investing anymore, but if I were to tap into that game field today, I would probably come back to Yahoo! Finance or Google Finance to help me out.

My past experience in investing really came in handy in checking out Kapitall – “an online investing platform that combines the world’s friendliest investing experience with powerful yet simple tools to build your skills – and maybe even your net worth.” I was happy to see it featured as a Weekly Faves because I was eager to test their “friendly platform” statement. Signing up prompted the welcome video (see below), which seemed promising. The problem was that when I actually started playing around with the website’s various features, I became rather confused. There were way too many pop-up flash windows, each asking me many questions.

Investing in stocks is a tough mission as it is, and when an online tool that’s supposed to ease things up ends up complicating them, one’s natural reaction is frustration and disinterest. If only Kapitall’s interface was a more intuitive and simpler one… Although I did manage to work my way around the site in the end, it’s a shame users need to spend so much time figuring out the site’s navigation rather than focusing on what’s important – easy and happy investment! Having said that, Kapitall’s Investor DNA and the News Viewer sections are note worthy, but my overall experience is not a positive one. I don’t think I’ll visit this site in the future, but maybe it is just me. What do you think about it?

Up Next In Sports – Sports encompass various physical activities drenched in emotions and adrenaline. Therefore, it’s not surprising that sport photos are sought-after, high profile visual items for us all. Like the celebrity paparazzi we all crave, photos of pro athletes and sport stars are remarkable and astonishing.

Up Next In Sports is based on the same overall concept, but from a different, more ridiculous and a hell of a lot funnier angle. Each photo is annotated with a laconic, sarcastic depiction (made up of course) to spice things up. By the way, you’re more than welcome to submit your own LOL sports picture – simply click here. My favorite ones are shown below. All I can say about these is that I just love it when they fly…

Photo Journal – When you think about The Wall Street Journal, the first thing that pops into your head is boring financial data, and in-depth economy related articles, right? That makes the two of us. That’s why I was so blown away by what I feel are the best photos I have ever seen online. I was especially impressed by the Pictures of the Day feature – photos here are simply stunning.

It is important to note that these aren’t simply highly professional photos, taken by this accredited photographer or another. It’s about amazing photos acting as news items that hold their own. Each photo is accompanied by a short description to help you understand its context. I truly admire this manner of consuming news because it combines great and powerful visuals with current updates on what’s going on in the world. Some of the photos I found particularly amazing are below. Clicking on the photos below will redirect you to the story behind them.

GlitchScape – GlitchScape is “an experimental sound/vision musical instrument designed and programmed by Tomasz Slawnikowski.” I am not sure I entirely grasped the essence of this interesting project, but I will give you my interpretation of it.

Drag the mouse to create a visual blue box. Each box creates a different sound, and you can add as many of these as you want. The more boxes you add, the more sounds are created in the loop. I think this site is best explained by simply entering it, so feel free to skip the rest of this post and jump right in. I asked my brother: “what is this site? I don’t get it” – to which he replied: “Not everything should be understood :-).” This project reminded me of a video art by Ulf Langheinrich and Kurt Hentschläger I saw a while ago. I was deeply impressed by it, which is why I am sharing it with you – it’s also blue. Coincidence?

Yo-Ho-Ho Cannon – All hands on deck! We have a new captain. He will guide our ghost-ship through 28 levels in hostile seas. No fort will resist us. Remember! Their gold belongs to us! Can you guess what this game reminded me of? Yep, Pirates of the Caribbean. See below Bloopers from POTC: Dead Man’s Chest. For daily updates of cool new games, check out facebook.com/allmygames.

Clicker – Online is the environment where we pretty much live our lives today. Think about it; we shop, listen to radio, read news, send mail and do so much more by simple mouse clicks in front of the screen. Consequently, our transformation into an exclusively webby community is just a matter of time.

One exclusion to the above statement is our TV consumption. Why do we find letting go of the old school viewing medium so difficult, especially nowadays, when visual information on the Web is just as accessible, if not more so? The answer is quite simple; sites such as Hulu.com and the like offer a large variety of full episodes of your favorite TV shows, but not all. Besides, licensing and copyright issues prevent overseas users from enjoying Hulu’s service. That’s a huge bummer for those who want it all – myself included. But let’s say you are satisfied with what the Web has to offer. You still need to work your way around finding what and where to watch because TV shows are scattered around the infinite online playground. So what can you do? In a few words; Clicker is here to help.

Clicker is “the complete guide to Internet Television,” and “catalogs all broadcast programming online, along with TV-quality Web originals, from these silos and delivers them in one seamless, organized experience so you can easily discover what’s available to watch (and what isn’t) online, where to watch it, and what’s worth watching.” Stop by for a refreshing take on the old tube.

Duffel – Organizing a trip can be quite stressful. There are so many things to think about and plan ahead, not to mention the relevant errands one needs to take care of (such as booking a flight and accommodation, car rental, etc.). In addition, you need to set a sight-seeing outline well before your arrival because time is of the essence on vacations, particularly if these are short term visits.

One resource that will help you organize your trip is Duffel, “a trip planning dashboard that organizes and helps you visualize your travel research.” To be honest, I felt the site required too much of an effort on my part and I wish their platform had been more intuitive and simpler overall. Just the thought of clipping and collecting my travel preferences got me tired. On the other hand, what I do appreciate about duffel is their feature of ‘ready-made’ visual trip plans. I found these extremely valuable since they provide you with useful recommendations you can actually implement in your next vacation. The best way to start exploring duffel would be by checking out their list of popular cities. This brought me to Rome, Paris and Tokyo.

My Very Worst Date – Victoria Namkung and Jessica Ramakrishnan are the two women behind My Very Worst Date. Both are journalists, which explains the exquisite content of this blog. So what’s the gist of My Very Worst Date? Here’s what Victoria and Jessica have to say: “My Very Worst Date is a commiseration of the moments when the sweet possibilities of romance turn into a sour struggle to get the hell out of the situation. We strongly believe that airing our (and other peoples) courtship disasters provides comedy, comfort and cautionary tales to bear in mind the next time you say ‘yes’ to drinks with a mysterious stranger.”

Reading about the misfortune of others in the dating scene (and sharing yours with others) was never so enjoyable and engaging. To begin, I would suggest checking out the Best of the Worst section. I read several accounts and was extremely shocked by The Jerk story, where the jerk noun turns out to be quite an understatement. Another thing that surprised me was that most of the stories here were submitted by women, thus focusing on the ‘she said’ rather than ‘he said’ side of the story. I feel I must protest; innocent men with genuine intentions also go through really bad dates every now and then…  I wish more men would join this terrific platform and share their dates gone wrong stories as well. This is the perfect venue for both men and women who didn’t want to kiss, but certainly wanted to tell!

Not Very Talented – The name of this site sums it up. Not Very Talented displays numerous cases of extremely untalented people performing unskillfully, to say the least. The amazing part about the site is that most of the videos here were uploaded to YouTube by the goofy performers themselves. This makes me wonder; do people really want to be famous at all cost, to the extent where publicity, however terrible, surmounts the embarrassment of making a fool out of oneself? Obviously the answer is yes. Below are some of the very untalented individuals who made my day. Enjoy!

Toss The Turtle – Every week our Weekly Faves feature a game (last logo). How do we choose that game? Every week our game experts play numerous online flash games, from which the top 10 games are selected and featured as the Weekly Games. A week after that, we check to see which games you, the users, have played the most and rated the highest. According to the results, we choose the Weekly Game. This week you chose Toss The Turtle where you have to use cannons, jet packs and bombs to launch the turtle as far as possible. Earn money to buy better weapons that shoot even farther. For daily facebook updates of only the best games out there, visit facebook.com/allmygames.

Jelli – Enjoying music online is as easy as ABC. If we’re fed up with a certain track or radio station we simply click on the next one – free choice on the Web is terrific, isn’t it? But just imagine how sweet life would be if we were able to manipulate the music lineup, determining which song will be played next. Sounds crazy, I know, but now this very option is available at your fingertips.

If you are looking for a different kind of music entertainment, one which is more democratic and ‘for the people, by the people,’ where you can help to determine the lineup of music tracks, Jelli is the place for you. This small piece of audio heaven here on earth is “100% user-controlled radio, enabling users to take over a radio station using their web browsers. Leveraging the power of the web to reinvent traditional broadcasting, Jelli empowers the community to interact with the broadcast in real-time and determine dynamically what plays on the air.”

To join in, all you need is to create an account. Choose from a list of stations, Red, Orange or Green and then start voting for or against each song on the list. For more in depth information on Jelli’s ins and outs, I recommend checking out their Getting Started and FAQ pages, but you should know their platform is extremely intuitive. The best part about Jelli in my view is that they managed to avoid instances of discontinued play due to buffering times. It looks, feels and sounds just like real radio, only it’s much more engaging, appealing and effective.

As for my favorites, the Red station is my top choice. I listened to it as I was writing this blog, and I was sure to provide my votes accordingly. Some of the songs I voted for actually made it to broadcast, which was really cool. This made me super happy and I genuinely felt I had a hand in creating the music lineup. Below are some of the songs that were played. Enjoy!

LifeTuner – This past year has made us all much more calculated in terms of expenses, and we all came to learn that frugal is no longer a negative, frowned upon adjective. Seeking bona fide financial advice is not only OK, it’s strongly recommended. Need someone to help you plan ahead? Drop by LifeTuner, which “brings together sensible, unbiased advice from volunteer financial experts with a vibrant community of peers and individuals who’ve been there before – all of whom can share their experiences and learn from each other.” On a side note, I thought it was interesting LifeTuner is brought to us by AARP, a non-profit organization “dedicated to helping people of all ages make smarter choices today for a better life tomorrow.”