Pummelvision – This rather simple yet powerful tool lets you import your photos from Flickr, Tumblr, or Facebook accounts, and pack them all into a fast forward slide show of the visual memories making up your life and social network.

Although the uploading process takes way too long in my view (hours to days), apparently it’s worth the wait. See the embedded video as a cool example of the end result.

Audioboo – This UK based company offers a terrific service allowing users to “record audio while on the move and add as much useful data to it as possible, such as photos, tags and location.” Although the Audioboo service’s full fledged benefits are ideal for mobile (currently offering an app for iPhone and Android), a PC interface is also available which allows you to both listen to and upload ‘boos’ as they call it.

What I found particularly interesting is the sharing aspect of Audioboo; you can follow or be followed via RSS subscriptions and iTunes’ podcast option. Sharing and following has become a must in practically every content producing website these days, and Audioboo has made great use of it. I recommend exploring Audioboo’s Channels selection (most are radio stations) as these offer intriguing discussions in various areas of interest. My current favorite ‘boo’ is the BBC London Channel. To learn more about Audioboo see the introduction video below.

Intro to Audioboo from Mark Rock on Vimeo.

Nuji – The idea behind Nuji is simple; “a free service where you can share and discover products you love with like-minded people.” How does it work? Use the Facebook Connect to log in, install the Nuji bookmarklet (a simple drag and drop installation), download the iPhone app if you wish, and start tagging. The Nuji innovation is simple, yet so powerful and useful I fell in love with it at first tag! See the screen shot below of one of my Nuji tags I did over at Urban Outfitters.

Once you’re all set up with the bookmarklet, you simply surf the Web as you would normally do, and when you stumble upon an interesting product of any kind, you click the ‘Tag with Nuji’ toolbar in your browser and select the tag location. After you have made some tags you can then proceed to start following other Nuji users with your line of taste, be it fashion and style, technology or any other field. I had a terrific time using Nuji, and I’ve already found several Nuji users to be inspired by.Here are but a few products I added to my Nuji list.

Teach Parents Tech – Don’t we all have at least one member in the family who has given up all efforts to learn how to make the most out of the Web? My 86 year-old grandma uses her PC offline to play solitaire, and online to read the news -she visits over 10 major news sites per day!- and receive emails, as long as these are text-only, basic messages without any attachments or links. On numerous different occasions I have tried tempting her to learn the wonders of the Web, but she would always reply with the same aphoristic claim: “Honey, I’m too old for that.”

My relentless efforts of Web-pushing (including creating for my grandma an All My Faves mini user showcasing all the news and health sites she reads obsessively every day) fail to lure my granny into deeper levels of Web exploration and interaction. It seems she’s dead set on keeping it as basic as possible, and even that, she says, is way too much. Seen as my grandma’s case is a familiar one among seniors, baby boomers and individuals with a low-tech life approach, it was wonderful to discover Google’s recent initiative, Teach Parents Tech, helping to eradicate the strong technophobia pandemic among older people.

Beautifully designed and super-easy to use, Teach Parents Tech is a two-part process; first is the form (shown above) you, the experienced Web users fills out, checking the boxes next to the online actions you wish your parents/grandparents/aunts & uncles would learn. Once you hit Preview you will be taken to a new page structured in a letter format including how-to videos corresponding to the issues you checked in the form. Next all you have to do is provide your and the recipient’s email addresses, and you’re good to go.

For my grandma I picked the two how-to videos below (how to copy & paste, and how to change the PC’s desktop background, respectively). The Teach Parents Tech project is outstanding in both its concept and execution, and I highly recommend using it for the technophobes in your family. This is a keeper!

I wonder how long it would take for my grandma to learn how to use Google Reader. On second thought, I think I’ll just take it one baby step at a time…

Stuff No One Told Me – A Weekly Blogs king, this witty and fun blog is all about lessons learned, wrapped up with a good laugh. Alex Noriega, the Spanish-born creator, indulges us with a concise statement about life, accompanied by a cute illustration on a monthly basis. Once a month is hardly the update frequency you would expect from a blog, but it’s totally worth it. It’s clever, lovely, and intellectually satisfying. Kudos, Alex! See a couple of posts as decent examples.

Isle of Tune – Create a world of music using streets, cars, trees and houses in this whimsical interactive game. As creators of Isle of Tune explain, “create musical journeys from street layouts. Roadside elements are your instruments and cars are the players. Share your island for others to play and vote on!”

I recommend starting out with the demo island to get the basics first. Here’s an image of my demo Isle of Tune.

Moment Garden – Sites celebrating your new baby’s birth and first years in life aren’t a digital novelty. Excited parents and 1st time parents-to-be can make use of an abundance of baby related resources online that combine photos, videos, family newsletters and invitations.

Moment Garden is playing in the same overall baby celebration field, only in national rather than little league. According to the website’s About,  Moment Garden is about collecting, documenting and sharing special moments with loved ones, capturing that “something you can re-live everyday. Something that celebrates your child’s life and keeps your family and friends updated of everything that’s happening.

How does Moment Garden compare to the other baby-childhood visual documenters out there? Decide for yourself.

Nikon’s This Day – This site could best be described as a “web content page that shows what happened on that day in the past, at some place in the world.” So if for instance, today’s date is December 19, 2010, This Day displays an important past event that took place on that date sometime in the past decades or centuries. Each entry is accompanied by an HD image, and the background music will make you feel as if you’re strolling around a futuristic yet peaceful museum.

Explore Nikon’s This Day and learn a bit of history along the way. Below is the entry for Dec 19, 1851, which marked the death of a famous English painter. Guess who?

Top Sites of 2010 – It’s that time of the year again, and we have the ultimate ‘Best of 2010’ face-off for you to participate in. It took us many hours of hard work and clamorous debates, but we’ve finally managed to narrow down the 40 Weekly Fave finalists for you to choose from as the best of 2010.

Declare who is your king of the Web by visiting the  Top Sites of 2010 Voting page and simply “Like” your website of choice (you can only do this once for each listed nominee). But do it quick – voting ends December 26 and winners will be announced on December 27. By the way, we also have a Top Games of 2010 voting event for you to take part in. Don’t you just love democracy?

Google Hotpot – If you’re already familiar with Foursquare, the Google Hotpot service offers the same underlining service concept -social networking with friends based on geo-location and business ratings- only it does it much, much better. Google has exceeded Foursquare’s service in every possible way, thanks to a large scale combination of the various Google tools; maps and street view, altitude, and search (including images, user reviews, related articles and loads more ) all come into play to offer an ultra geo-location service.

The end result is an all-you-could-possibly-need geo-location service, aimed mostly at the wine & dine aspect of entertainment (search restaurants, diners, cafes, etc.). You can see the screen shot below of the restaurant search I did, ending up with the Spotted Pig, a British restaurant in the West Village neighborhood of NYC. You will see how one page includes all the basic information (phone number, map and driving directions, menu), BUT there are also photos of the restaurant and its dishes (including a street-view), actual reviews of former guests of the restaurant, a list of related places and more formal, critic-based restaurant reviews.

I didn’t stop at the Hotpot’s eating-related business search and looked for cool museums to visit in San Francisco. Did Google Hotpot live up to my expectation? Oh yeah.

Just think of this service’s extreme usefulness in the mobile context. You could search for practically any kind of business or entertainment venue near you in real-time, in a matter of minutes, see what bistros your friends have been to and recommend others to visit as well, how to get there, even what to order. As expected, this is another phenomenal service by Google.

TripWow – This super cute tool by TripAdvisor, my #1 travel guide and rating place, is an absolute must feature to make use of when you have returned from your vacation and wish to share your photos in a fun way with friends and family.

The TripWow interface is attractive and easy to navigate through. Start by uploading your photos (you can choose between several photo storage providers such as Facebook, flickr and Picasa as well as uploading pics from your PC or Mac). Next, customize your sideshow by selecting a theme, background music, and related text (your name, your vacation destination and more). See a solid example of TripWow’s whole nine yards via my sideshow, titled “My Crete Getaway,” a trip I had last summer.

Historvius – Some travelers strive to be the antithesis to traditional tourists, seeking rarely visited, off the beaten path sites around the world, avoiding famous sites and the crowds at all costs. But that doesn’t mean famous sites have become overrated. On the contrary, international tourist sites such as Egypt’s pyramids or the huge man-shaped statues of Easter Island are still on my to-visit list, and the fact that many people flock these places each year is not about to deter me from doing so.

Historvius is a wonderful information place on mainstream (and less known) tourist sites worldwide, offering a super cool platform for learning more on your next sought-after site (note that you won’t be able to find info on cities per se, rather only on attraction sites). Start your site search by selecting your vacation destination, or choose a time period you are interested in as a filter, or, if yo wish, search by historical figure. There is also an open search for those interested. I had a specific site in mind I wanted to learn more about when I gave Historvius a try, and I enjoyed it tremendously. The photo below is a hint. Click it to get to the site’s page.