Formspring.me – Don’t let the simple design of this site fool you. Formspring.me is a useful tool that helps people find out more about each other through sharing interesting & personal responses. Direct Q & A is the key concept of Formspring.me and results can be both surprising and insightful. Use this tool to find out more about the university or college you applied to, maybe even a restaurant you thought about trying, or a company you would like to work at.
Snail Mail My Email – This unusual free service invites you to write up an email message to whomever you wish, and Snail Mail My Email will hand-write your message on an actual paper letter and send in via post office like in the good old days.
When you think about it, there’s something magical about old-school letters. These can also have greater persuasion power in say, politics, romance or family event contexts than a lifeless email message may hold. But Snail Mail My Email’s goal is different. This project seeks to practice the way people used to interact with each other in the past, using manually written messages. Snail Mail My Email will reverse technology for you, providing your message does not exceed 100 characters. Be sure to provide the recipient’s post mail address, and you can even pick one custom option to be added to your letter (a doodle, a flower petal, spray of perfume or lipstick kiss) and email your message to snailmailmyemail@gmail.com.
The Snail Mail My Email is a temporary, interactive community art project (from July 15 to August 15) made up of 134 volunteers worldwide, all cherishing the “lost art of letter writing.”
Threewords.me – The idea of this unique site is simple. Sign up, send your friends your threewords.me link and see how they describe you (anonymously) using just three words. I guess this is a decent way to get an honest opinion about oneself, and I’m sure many people would love to use it. However, if I were clueless or curious about how I’m perceived by my friends, I would simply ask them face to face instead of using a third party in the form of cold technology. But that’s just me.
Memrise – This vocabulary builder is unlike anything I’ve seen online thus far. I visited Memrise thinking I will use it to freshen up the advanced French vocabulary I learned back in college, but I soon found myself learning Mandarin. Memrise is a fast, easy and above all, enjoyable way to learn a new language and to enhance the ones you already speak.
What’s so special about Memrise? The team behind this innovative tool has mastered the science of new knowledge acquisition (especially the kind that’s involved in learning new words) to ensure long-term retention stays above 90%. How? Contributing users fluent enough in a given language give word association tips, and share their way of remembering what words mean. Association, according to science, is the best knowledge and memory retention method. Here’s a solid example of Memrise’s magic, showing how to remember the Mandarin word for Man.
The Memrise magic doesn’t stop there. By using a Farmville-like seed planting and greenhouse growing bait, the system gives you incentives to come back later and practice what you’ve learned. Even the quiz questions are built in a way that helps you remember the new vocab words better. I seriously believe Memrise is a must in every classroom across the country. Well done, Memrise team!
Visual.ly – Focused on the field of data visualizations, Visual.ly collects “the best examples on the web and gathered them for you to reference, share, and enjoy.” You will find here insightful multi-colored infographics and visualized maps. The site also welcomes visual arts professionals seeking to showcase their own designed inforgraphics.
To explore the visual wonders on this site, go to View the Showcase, and if you’d like to share your own designs then sign in, and hit Submit Infographics. Another special perk that will soon be available on Visual.ly is their labs, the place where infographic magic happens (and created) by site visitors. And since infographics is the topic in question, why not share one with you? There you go.
The Most Dangerous Species in the Mediterranean, published by Agencia Catalana.
Dragon Dictation – This iPhone app by Nuance Communications is a dream come true to many busy professionals, and there’s no wonder why it’s currently one of the most recommended (and free) apps by major tech blogs and news sites. With Dragon Dictation you simply say whatever you need done, whether it’s an email, a Facebook status update, text message, a to-do task or a call to someone. The app will do it for you, fast. This app was created by a “voice recognition application powered by Dragon NaturallySpeaking that allows you to easily speak and instantly see your text content.”
Dragon Dictation is revolutionary in its field, and it offers an easy solution to busy businessmen and women on the go, with the added hands-free bonus. Currently free for Apple mobile products, available at the App Store. This is amazing stuff!
Wunderlist – Not just another task management service, Wunderlist offers a powerful to-do and project list tool that has all the perks of today’s digital age. You can share your project notes and lists with whomever you want, have all the data stored in the cloud rather than on your computer, and Wunderlist’s mobile app (available for iPhone, iPad and Android), makes it possible to access, work on and manage all of your lists on the go. The web app is available to both Windows PC and Mac OSX.
When such great functionality is built so beautifully, it would be a sin not to give Wunderlist a try. Here’s to much more productive to-do’s.
Newspaper Map – In today’s age of influx of people, communities and nationalities to and from every location, physical borders are now becoming more obsolete than ever before. The result, as NY Times columnist and best-selling author Thomas Friedman so eloquently explained, is that “The World is Flat.” Newspaper Map brings a whole new meaning to this very concept through the World Wide Web by offering an online reading room for every possible newspaper from virtually every possible country.
Using pinned locations on Google Maps, Newspaper Map offers a visual interactive interface by which you can search, browse and select newspapers from different locations worldwide in different languages. Each newspaper’s language can be translated (using Google Translate of course). This means you can virtually read any newspaper the world has to offer. Once you pick a pinned location, the site will offer a list of translation options so you can read the newspaper regardless of its language of origin. See an example below.
Friedman had it right. The world is flat alright, and we might as well benefit from its ever-increasing connectivity and flow of information. Newspaper Map is a great productive concept we should use to learn better what’s going on in different parts of the world, places and communities hidden to us until now.
imo – Though it might seem as not that of a big deal, imo definitely is huge. It’s a “web-based service that allows users to hold text, voice, and video chats on multiple instant messaging protocols.” That means you can log into all your chat and messaging accounts in one place, and no imo registration or signup is required. It also means your friends needn’t be on imo -they can simply use whatever chat service they’re registered to and interact with you while you’re on imo.
Currently available on the iPhone, iPad and Android, imo is a great service for avid chatters and instant messegers seeking one system to rule them all. The protocols imo is supporting as of today include AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, Facebook Chat, Jabber, MSN, MySpace, Skype, Yahoo Messenger, and Hyves.
SugarSynch – File sync and online backup provider SugarSynch is making Dropbox look a bit weak. SugarSynch offers sweet file storage and sharing (including large-sized files) using the cloud. Dropbox has been, up to this point, the leading provider of file backup that’s automatically synced on multiple devices, but their free track only allows for 2 GB. SugarSynch, on the other hand, offers more than twice as much – 5 GB of space for free plan users. 
What other features make SugarSynch stand out? You can backup and sync any folder on your computer, upload files via email, share folders with permissions and passwords, publish photos to facebook and many other perks you won’t find elsewhere. In addition, SugarSynch works with Android, Blackberry, Symbian and of course iPhone and iPad. For the complete list of comparison, click here. I’ve already signed up for the free 5 GB file storage plan. What about you? To learn more watch the video below.
Neer – Location sharing is a popular mobile feature these days with Foursquare, GoWalla and Brightkite being some of the prominent location based apps. The problem with these however is that you let others -both friends and people you don’t know- know where you are and what you’re doing. Neer is another location sharing app that’s both productive and, for those who prefer it, private.
Neer is a clever application that connects family and friends based on shared location info, thus making social and family interaction more effective and fun. To start off, create your contact list of ‘cleared’ family members and friends. Next, add the locations you visit most frequently to Neer, and ask your friends to do the same. Neer will send you alerts of when, for example, your spouse has left the office, where they are on their way back home, even whether your kid is back home from school. These alerts are automatic and secure.
If you wish to make use of location-based tools without letting strangers in on where you are, Neer is the perfect app for you, your family and circle of friends. Works on the iPhone and Android. To learn more about Neer, here’s the intro video:
iMeet – Promising your very own personal meeting room online, iMeet is here to make video conference calls as enjoyable and effective as they can possibly be. Aside from worldwide accessibility and multiple device compatibility, iMeet allows for conference video meetings made up of up to 15 people, and whenever someone speaks, you will know exactly who it is as their cube will start to glow.
Although this is a paid service (offering free trial), it’s free for the people invited to the meeting. Other perks iMeet offers is social media stuff such as bio and pics, chat, privacy options, background customization and other sweet ‘make it my own’ features. iMeet has gained lots of attention from the tech community, apparently for a god reason.
So, is it worth checking out? Oh yeah. Looks amazing, offers a rewarding bundle of perks and features and it does the job.
