EnergySavvy – Improving Home Efficiency Can Save you Cash

EnergySavvy – What if there was an easy way for you to learn not only how to make your house more efficient in terms of energy and sustainability, but also how to save big bucks along the way? Now you can with EnergySavvy. This handsome website will guide you through the various aspects in your home that could be improved to save on energy and cash. No download is necessary. Simply insert your zip code and follow the questionnaire. Don’t worry. It’s not the boring questionnaire type you have in mind. This one’s colorful, interesting and over in a breeze.

Apart from making energy efficiency easier to homeowners, EnergySavvy exposes users to financial incentives that bring down energy use, provides additional tips, and offers listings of “the best energy efficiency contractors in the industry.” You can rely on EnergySavvy for speaking the truth; some of their partners include the US Department of Energy, the Energy Trust of Oregon, and other organizations.

Knock Knock – Staying Organized with a Smile (and Style)

Knock Knock – Stationary is usually rather straightforward and expectable. But here we have Knock Knock, an online store offering super stylish and witty stationary items for the home and office. There are hundreds of cute and funny products on KnockKnock, all beautifully designed and with a humorous added value you won’t find at OfficeDepot.

I recommend starting out with browsing KnockKnock’s Top Selling Stuff. See some of these here below.

Gogobot – Trusted Travel Tips Shared by Friends

Gogobot – The best trip tips I get when I travel come not necessarily from travel guides like TripAdvisor and the like, but from friends who had already been to my desired destination. Gogobot is built upon the same concept, offering a network of friends who share the best travel tips with the rest of the community, based upon ‘actually been there’ experiences. These tips are then combined with photos and maps to build the ultimate travel guide for you, according on your preferences.

To see the wonders of Gogobot, log in with your facebook account and explore Destinations, or type in any other location and hit Plan a Trip. You can either seek advice or share yours with the community. To see an example, check out this travel profile for San Diego. To learn more on Gogobot, watch the video below.

GroupMe – Fun and Free Group Texting

GroupMe – This service is essentially a group chat room that’s been modified to text messaging mode. It works with every cell phone that supports texting, so you don’t need a fancy iPhone or any other smart phone to use GroupMe (although iPhone and Android users have the GroupMe app available). You can create multiple groups while each network receives a designated number you will use for texting its members (sending and receiving). Some classic group categories I can think of are friends, colleagues, family, carpool group, etc.The possibilities are endless.

For quick GroupMe actions (i.e. key shortcuts), read this help section. Although there’s no limit to the number of groups you can create and be part of, GroupMe recommends keeping an ideal number of 4-10 members in each group. Apparently a higher number leads to clutter and noise, which makes sense. So what other functions are available on GroupMe? Aside from sending text, you can share photos with your group and make conference calls. Oh, and using GroupMe is free by the way. The only downside to this service is that it’s available only in the US for now. The GroupMe team says it’s working on making it available in other countries as well. Let’s hope that happens sooner rather than later.

Fashism – An Honest ‘How Do I Look?’ Response

Fashism – Ladies, we’ve all been there before. We put on a new dress, pants or top. We turn to our girlfriend or boyfriend/husband, asking “how do I look?” If a far too considerate, sugar-coated answer is what you’re getting instead of an honest response, Fashism is your solution. Founded by fashion columnist Brooke Moreland, and cleverly marketed by Ashley Granata, Fashism is here to give you a sincere feedback on your look or newly purchased apparel item.

Simply upload an image (you can do so via iPhone as well), and let the community have its say through ratings and comments. Although signing up to Fashism is extremely rewarding, you do not necessarily have to be a registered user to upload pics and get feedback on your look. Having an account though can earn you points which can bring you discounts and special offers, so why not register? Here are a couple of great looks I found here on Fashism.

Photo by Lerush

Photo by Armywife502


Slice – Exploring America’s Pizza Obsession

Slice – Welcome to this pizza central, a weblog covering all aspects of America’s most favorite carb food. Aside from providing mouth watering photos of pizza of every possible kind, Slice regularly posts (brought to us by Serious Eats) pizza news, reviews and videos.

Let’s just dive right in, shall we? Click the images below to read the wonderful pizza posts here on Slice.

I also thought I’d share this video with you, ’50-Second Pizza Party by Brooks Jones.

We Dance to the Beat – Robyn Asks “What’s Yours?”

Robyn – Are you familiar with this Swedish recording artist, singer and songwriter? I admit I wasn’t familiar with Robyn, but her beat mixing platform We Dance to the Beat made me curious and entertained. Although this beat blender might be annoying to some in terms of sound, I found it to be a unique and creative experience. Make your personalized dance to the beat track by adding/removing sounds as you go along, and share the end result with your social network.

We Dance to the Beat is beautifully designed, and for those of you choosing to explore Robyn’s music project, I say turn up the volume and enjoy it.

InTheMo – Video-Based Recommendations for Your City’s Cool Spots

InTheMo – This smart video-based recommendation guide claims to be “the first worldwide city guide that learns what you like.” Basically the InTheMo system ‘learns’ what you’re into by keeping track of your clicks in the site, and suggesting city spots that suit your taste and preferences.

The concept behind InTheMo is creating a community of ‘local experts’ who define and share the location of cool spots worldwide (covering 576 cities in 16 different countries). How do videos fit in exactly? Well, according to InTheMo’s press release from Nov 22, 2010, “the site uses documentary style video to share the stories and personalities behind these businesses” (PR Newswire). To start exploring the video recommendations at InTheMo, I suggest diving into the Best Of Lists -most recommended spots- and be sure to pick your city (right under the InTheMo logo on the top left). Now let the video fun begin; click Videos and see InTheMo’s visual guide in action.

In order for the InTheMo system to learn more about the activities and attractions you are likely to love, sign in (I used my Facebook account for that), pick your city and start ‘Recing’ your favorite city spots (as in Rec for recommendation), while specifying the degree of interest in percentages, from 50% to 100%. Picking 15 Recs is a good starting point for InTheMo’s system to know what other spots it can recommend you. InTheMo is a fun and interesting service worth checking out. Here’s a screen shot of the Rec It options I chose from.

Appreciate It – The Longest Collaborative Thank You Note Ever

Appreciate It – This site is straightforward and heart-warming; each user submits the thing he or she is appreciative of or thankful for, and the accumulated submissions creates a huge cloud of interesting, often bizarre, ‘I appreciate it’ notes. Some of my favorites include “being clean,” “the health of my family, the greatest wealth is health,” and “having a healthy baby at 40.” What were you appreciative for in 2010? Submit it using the form on the bottom of the page.

When Parents Text – Unintentional Funny Dissonances

When Parents Text – This Weekly Blog winner is self-explanatory, and you can imagine just how far this Tumblr takes the laughs that lies in generational gaps. I found myself identifying with a commendable number of texts listed in this blog’s archive, and I bet you will, too. Enjoy this one.

Instants – 72 Sound Buttons for Every Occasion

Instants – This Spanish site is a huge bundle of sound joy, offering 72 different buttons where each makes a specific sound that is hilarious in its own right. To give you an example, if I were to tell a joke to a friend and he wouldn’t get it, I’d click the ‘crickets’ button to get out of that uncomfortable silence with style. Other buttons I can’t wait to use are Hallelujah, Muppets, Omnom!, or the vulgar yet equally entertaining Shut Up button. This site is all about laughs and making fun of yourself and others (if you wish of course). The screen shot below shows only the first three rows.

The 2010 PNC Christmas Price Index – Beautiful Visualization of Price Fluctuations

The 2010 PNC Christmas Price Index – For 27 years now, PNC Bank has been keeping this wonderful tradition of tracking price fluctuations of the gifts mentioned in “The Twelve Days of Christmas” song. This year they’ve created an enchanting interactive website to visualize the 2010 data in comparison to the gifts’ prices in 2009.

See the price change of a partridge in a pear tree, two turtle doves, three French hens, four calling birds and so on, right up to the 12 drummers in 2010. The PNC Christmas Price Index site is so engaging, stunning and fun, learning about the percentages of increase or decrease in the prices of the gifts of Xmas is merely a secondary attraction. Enjoy this one.