Pictory – Editor, designer and founder of Pictory Laura Brunow invites you to “submit one large, captioned image to each of Pictory’s editorial themes.” The end result is stunning, collective photo essays where each photo (only grade A images are included) originates from a different person of a different country and culture, yet all images work together in harmony. Pictory is a well-designed and edited photo story-telling venue that is refreshing. Most photo essays online offer a variety of photos from the same photographer. Pictory is different, unique and engaging, and it’s rather easy to participate in.

To explore the essence of Pictory, start with Eat at Your Own Risk. Amazing stories told by submitted photos.

Quirky – Now these guys mean business. Quirky offers a mighty innovative platform where anyone from the global online community can pitch an idea for a practical, life-ameliorating invention, or a radical improvement of an existing product. Quirky handles the actual product development and marketing aspects, which pushes forward amazing ideas and makes them a solid, retailer-sold reality.

Quirky’s framework is so brilliant, they produce a new product every few days, and users are invited to take an active part in products’ development. Depending on their level of participation, contributing community members earn hard cash from the products’ sales in stores. Here’s more on how Quirky works.

My favorite part of Quirky? The Shop. It’s where you can buy many of Quirky’s manufactured products that make life so much easier, induced by people like you and me who shared their great idea. That’s where I found these two amazing products. The first is Weigh To Go, a multi-functional travel accessory whose compact form packs a digital scale, identification tag, and built-in lock to prevent theft. Available for presale ($33).

The second cool gadget I’d like to share is called Splash Stacks, a cushioned mat set that is easy on your knees when bathing a baby or a pet in the tub. Instead of kneeling on hard bathroom floor tiles Splash Stacks is the perfect alternative ($39.99). This product is in production.

Redux – It seems everybody’s talking about content curation these days, and many see this as the next level of social interactions online. What it means in simpler terms is that users worldwide share things they’ve discovered on the Web in various venues, in addition to the conventional social networks and blogs. Redux is yet another content curation hub where everyone’s invited to share entertainment finds in the form of photos, music, videos and websites.

Here’s a video I found on Redux that is particularly enchanting. Think of it as your daily chill pill.

SwipeGood – The ingenious idea behind SwipeGood makes the entire process of giving a whole lot simpler. The service rounds up the purchases you make with your credit or debit card to the nearest dollar, and donates that loose change to an organization of your choice.

Once you register your credit/debit card, you don’t need to do anything else aside from simply carrying on with your regular routine. The passive giving approach -while having full access to the transactions and donations reports via SwipeGood- makes charitable donations effortless and wonderful! As a SwipeGood member, you have full control over your contributions: you can set a monthly donation limit, pause the SwipeGood process at any time, and choose between 748 different organizations to give to.

Signing up is super quick and easy, and once you add a card to the SwipeGood service, you can start helping your choice of organizations instantly. What a great idea! We loved it.

Bloesem – The weird-named blog network is Irene Hoof’s sophisticated and elegant source of “ideas for design, for leisurely pursuits, for creating soul-soothing interiors, for love of the handmade, for vintage appreciation, for the art of traveling.” Relish in large doses of beauty and creativity via Bloesem, and find inspirations for the home, your kids, your next trip and many other in-between life moments.

I loved browsing through Irene’s design finds and ideas, and even though I don’t necessarily plan on making any purchases soon, there’s no harm in some hardcore window shopping. Here’s one particular post on vintage ceramics I adored and wanted to share (by Stig Lindberg):

Eat Sleep Draw – Dedicated to art from across the globe, this online art community site posts 100% original content submitted by contributors worldwide. The Tumblr venue of Eat Sleep Draw offers a variety of creative artworks in the form of illustrations, comics and more, all carefully picked by the ESD team. In addition, you can explore the community’s magazine (the official publication of Eat Sleep Draw showing artwork unpublished on the site), and ESD.tv, showing video interviews with selected artists.

Eat Sleep Draw is simplistically designed, yet manages to offer solid creative inspirations and magnificent artworks such as this one by Angelica.

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.”

WOW!collector – Here’s a nice Web spot that’s filled with enticing wonder and thought. The WOW!collector blog features fascinating posts in different categories including So Nice, Very Informative, Quite Funny and Wonderfully Weird. It’s a special venue where you will be spending long moments, and probably find yourself emailing and sharing on Facebook some of the entries here. To give you a taste of WOW!collector, here’s an interesting poster series by Viktor Hertz (the man who created Honest Logos), his own representation of various jackpot films.

GoRankem – I’m always on the lookout for new music and artists, and thanks to an abundance of music discovery tools online virtually anyone can expand their music repertoire. GoRankem is yet another music discovery player offering honest artist recommendations based on the taste of artists’ fans. The active contribution of users is what propels GoRankem, and I much prefer the suggestions of true fans than being handed down the ‘check this out’ of doubtful taste makers (i.e. music sites’ founders).

To see GoRankem in action, and as my personal tribute to the recently deceased singer, here’s the artist page of Amy Winehouse who passed away last Saturday. I found some interesting similar artists thanks to GoRankem’s user rating system.

Kendi Everyday – When young and gorgeous Kendi got married and moved with her husband to a small town, everyone thought the natural next step for her would be having a baby. Instead, she started a fashion lookbook-ish blog where each post shows Kendi in a different outfit. The photos are amazing (thanks to her talented hubby photographer), colorful and they all make you want to dash to the nearest shopping mall.

What I love about Kendi Everyday is that in each post she includes a hand-written comment that tells you where she got that skirt, blouse and shoes. Most blogs with a similar concept include these much sought-after details in the lowest frame of the post, often even in the comment section. Kendi puts it right on top, and right under the photo she’ll provide direct links that will take you to the item’s respective online shop! Now, here’s Kendi herself, definitely working it.

Mixing Reality – This fascinating and inspiring blog by Mixing Reality, a content creator and Web presence provider, seeks to find and share the meeting points of eco, art, trends and culture through social media. The end result of the company’s blog is an eclectic collection of design, art and innovation made by creative professionals all over the globe.

My favorite post on Mixing Reality serves as a wonderful example to the Mixing Reality state of mind, Reuse Project of the Day: Judith Klausner: Oreo Cameos. Can you believe these are made from America’s No. 1 cookie?

Gojee – This recipe site -named after the funny looking berry from southeastern Europe and Asia- stands out from conventional recipe sites for a few obvious reasons. First, from the first moment you enter Gojee, all you see are large, hi-res, mouth-watering photos. Second, the site shows you (as opposed to merely ‘finds’) curated recipes depending on what you crave and what you currently have at home, while the system eliminates what you hate or can’t eat. The free style recipe search is also available if you must.

Whatever recipe you fall in love with can be shared on Facebook, Twitter or via email, and you can also mark it as a favorite. Who curated and tested these to-drool-for recipes? Meet the savvy cooks and foodie bloggers behind the scenes.