Going – Find cool things to do, see and discover in your city with Going, a one-stop place for cool attractions suiting your going out cup of tea (or beer). Although the beta version of Going starts off with NYC as the default location, there are 30 US cities to choose from.

The great part about Going is that you can search for fun things to do by checking activities and events’ popularity (what people like the most) so you don’t have to start wondering if a certain event is as promising as it seems or if it’s a flop. In addition, the Going platform allows you to meet new people seeking the same activities you are looking for, hence putting together people with the same areas of interest.

Other Going perks include popular places, Going deals (for members only), top searches, browsing by categories (nightlife, music, culture and more), and there’s even a mobile app that comes in handy when you’re out in the street looking for something fun to do. Going will show you what it really means to make the most out of what your city has to offer!

Foodily – This easy to use food search engine brings you relevant search results from all over the Web, regardless of what recipe you are looking for. Not only that, Foodily also suggests related searches and lets you go social with what you find. Foodily describes itself as “the world’s largest recipe network, bringing together recipes from across the web so you can compare any recipe and find the ones your friends like.”

I tested the Foodily service, and I must admit, I was impressed. I started out with a rather simple search for ‘tart.’ Look what some of the results look like.

I then went on to search for a more obscure, yet a personal favorite dish – Kimchee (spicy pickled Napa cabbage with lots of chili flakes, a signature Korean dish). Foodily presented me with a large variety of results and I was delighted to add some inspiring recipes to my repertoire. Great site for food and recipes!

Reason – With the underlining principles of “liberty and individual choice in all areas of human activity,” the online site of printed magazine Reason offers an unconventional approach to politics and culture coverage. Moreover, Reason presents itself as a voice positioned outside the left and right-wing arenas.

Reason is not part of any giant content conglomerate, but is rather funded by a non-profit organization, the Reason Foundation pushing forward “free minds and free markets.” So what sort of articles will you find on Reason Online? An array of well-written posts that entice your analytical sense and make you think about current affairs in an active, rather than passive way. The first example I would like to share is The Unschooled Life, an interview with bOING bOING’s Mark Frauenfelder. Our Leaky World by Jesse Walker is another example of Reason Online’s blissful content. Time to make your own mind about what’s going on in America and beyond.

Qwiki – What’s your usual research method online when you want to learn more about something or someone? Google? Wikipedia? These two and other Web search tools will most definitely direct you to relevant resources, but I would like to suggest an innovative website that goes about information consumption with an entirely different approach: Qwiki.

Typing a search word or phrase in Qwiki’s search box prompts a wonderland of visually presented information including photos, maps and data that are accompanied by both vocal narration and text. The end result is an engaging presentation on whatever you’d like to learn more about, be it historical figures, events, monuments, animals, even locations and businesses. Start by searching for your hometown on Qwiki and see what I mean. Another example is the one below of the famous philosopher Aristotle. Click the image below to see it.

Sensr – Public webcams broadcasting what goes on in different locations around the world could hardly be considered a new technological development. Another familiar use of webcams is for monitoring what goes on at home while we’re away. Relying on the same basic surveillance concept, Sensr.net offers a different implementation of the webcam that is both exciting and practical. Sensr.net invites you to pick a webcam, whether yours or one of those placed in public locations worldwide (with free access), so you could aim it at something and whenever there’s movement action, Sensr alerts you immediately.

Using basic motion detection, Sensr.net is able to identify the action you can’t see for yourself while at work or anywhere else. This is also a great service to track meaningful moments worldwide. By the way, for additional and creative uses of your computer webcam, see our previous post on the subject, Top 15 Websites that Kick Webcam Butt.

Buzzillions – The next time you plan on making an online purchase, I assume you will first compare prices. Sites such as NexTag, Shopzilla and the like spring to mind, right? Well, there’s yet another price comparison and product review site you should add to your repertoire: Buzzillions. They claim to have over 13 million genuine product reviews submitted by actual online consumers (as opposed to paid reviews). Buzzillions is easy to use, nice to look at and it’s pretty straightforward.

See the screen shot below of the snowboard search I did on the site. I honestly couldn’t think of any downsides to Buzzillions, but whatever lowest price you find here for any given product search, I suggest comparing with Amazon. By the way, you should check out the Buzzilions mobile app -a particularly handy tool on the go.

The digital age has brought us numerous life-enhancing benefits. Some of the most obvious include super fast communication regardless of geographic location, social networks and virtual communities, and online shopping, just to name a few. But in terms of information consumption, there’s an interesting shift worth noting. I am referring to the infographic, the visually pleasing crossbreed between information and graphics that makes complex concepts, statistics and processes much easier to digest when compared to plain text-and-number info. Here at All My Faves we’ve already featured a few infographic sources, and we also have a special Infographics Mini Faves page for it.

So what makes infographics so different from charts and graphs, you might ask. These, too, serve as visual aids that facilitate data analysis and comprehension, right? Well, as Cool Infographics creator and Inforgraphic Designer Randy Krum explains, “Charts and graphs can communicate data; infographics turn data into information.”  The bottom line characteristic of infographics distinguishing it from conventional data information is this: readers of infographics not merely acknowledge changes of statistics and data; they get the bigger picture fast and understand why these changes occurred in the first place.

Let’s dive right into the visuals and you will see why inforgraphics are making a steadfast appearance all over the Web (not to mention in major news websites and newspapers’ printed editions such as the NY Times). The first example is “The 10 Most Expensive Cities to Live In 2010” infographic by the Australian brokerage company, HomeLoanFinder.

Another great infographic example is this one below, showing the Rise of Walking and Biking, from 1990 to 2009 (source: Department of Transportation, appeared in GOOD Magazine, Jun 24, 2010). Click the image to launch the interactive infographic.

This third one is a knock-out, both in terms of aesthetics and functionality. Created by the talented team over at Information is Beautiful, Visualizing Bloodtests is the ultimate data-into-info example, and there’s no wonder why this visualization scored the 1st place in Wired Mag’s re-envisioning medical data design competition.

A standard bloodtest data document. Almost impossible to fully comprehend what’s going on there. and this is crucial to someones’ life!

Now see the magic of infographics (thanks to Information is Beautiful), turning the uncomprehensible document from above to an easy to digest content:

To wrap things up, see this interesting video talking about the use of infographics in the New York Times (via GestaltenTV).

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.

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.

OhLife – This site has such a unique concept I was anxious to try it out. The basic idea of OhLife is to keep a daily diary -totally private of course- that shows you how you’ve changed through time, and what events and feelings affected you the most. And all this happens using a tool you use on a daily basis anyway – your email.

Once you’ve signed up OhLife sends this question to your email: “How did your day go?” Simply answer it and hit Reply. Over the course of the following days this will go on and over time you will see the changes you went through in terms of events, relationships and feelings – essentially life in a nut shell, only it’s the most interesting one since it’s yours! Set up the time you wish OhLife to send you the question email, even add pics. It’s the ideal modern-day diary for the busy urbanists.

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.

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…