Genero.tv – Feel like making the music video of your favorite artist? Now you can with Genero.tv. a site that picks the songs from artists around the world and then leaves it up to you to make your own music videos for them to express what the songs represent for you. This innovative and creative idea brings together grade A artists (including Royskopp, Moby, David Lynch, Alicia Keys) with video creators to make the best music videos ever. Winning videos score fame and great prizes, so if you know your way around the creative video world, genero.tv is the place for you. To get an idea of the artists listed here who are waiting for cool videos see the screen shot below.
To see an example of genero.tv in action, see this video by thespecialbobo , a finalist for Alicia Keys’ Wait Till You See My Smile song (apologies for not embedding the video, the code failed to work).
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.
card karma – I ditched the idea of sending e-cards online a while ago, mostly due to poor quality and originality of the free cards offered by major e-card providers. But here we have card karma, an exceptional website that offers e-card customization for free with beautiful images (including your own photos), videos and visuals that will persuade the most stubborn e-card haters to reconsider.
Create your e-card by picking an occasion, an image or browse the popular categories. You can edit the text of course, change colors, add images, videos, and decide if you wish to keep your e-card private or public. Here’s the Thank You e-card I created for a very special person in my life.
Image by babasteve on flickr
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.
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.
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.
Jumo – This website is simply amazing. It has cleverly combined the world of NGO/NPOs with the social network sphere, making it the best ‘follow your cause’ venue currently on the Web. In simpler terms, Jumo “makes it easy for you to find, follow, and support the issues and organizations that are important to you.”
Once you’ve signed up via Facebook, the Jumo platform asks you to select your areas of interest (such as human rights, environment and animals, poverty, art & culture, etc.). Next, based on your location, the Jumo system showcases nine different organizations and causes for you to follow in each of your chosen fields. See it here:
When you’re done, you’re taken to Jumo’s silverlining page: a Facbook profile-like page, customized according to your preferences, displaying important news and updates -feeds, really- relevant to your profile, plus suggested causes and organizations to follow. It looks amazing, includes content I’d actually like to read and it’s all for a good purpose. Hooray Jumo!
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.
How About We… – When I used to be a member of a certain online dating site, the experience was always awkward and felt a bit fake. Each man’s profile I read on the site seemed like a marketing pitch and I would always approach every message or conversation I had there with great suspicion and doubt. If the online dating experience is not your cup of tea either, but you’re still eager to meet singles, check out How About We…
This site’s basic approach is fundamentally different from any other online dating site. Instead of constructing a (let’s face it) sugar glazed profile of who you are and what you’re looking for, you come up with your idea of a good date by starting with the words “How about we…” (ex. How about we visit my neighborhood’s new brewery?) This way you have a much better chance of attracting singles interested in the same things you are, hence, increased probability of a good match. My friend Mia from Palo Alto, CA tried out this service and said it’s “a refreshing take on online dating I’d actually like to try out for a while.” Need I say more?
