Google Zeitgeist – Just about every major content publisher is currently offering its take on this year’s top this, top that. When such lists are not produced by democratic means (i.e. user votes and surveys), naturally I tend to take these with a grain of salt. But Google Zeitgeist is an exception. If you’re following the Official Google Blog on a regular basis like I do, you get weekly updates on the latest search trends people are creating when typing in search words and navigating through the Web.

Based on their accumulative data generated by searches online, the agenda-less search giant has summed up 2009’s most influential “people, events and memories that made this year unique.” Their Zeitgeist is a neatly organized list of categories such as celebrities, news, sports and more. Clicking on each of these will prompt a detailed report and sub lists related to that topic with nonsense content and friendly graphs to help you see things in a visual way. That’s how I discovered that the South Beach Diet made a huge comeback this year, leaving the Atkins and low carb diets in the dust.

WhoSampled – My father is a big time music lover, and when the two of us talk about today’s music trends and styles, he sternly claims “there is no new music that’s 100% original and worth listening to, because most of the new ‘good’ music is based on covers and samples of oldies.” Do you agree with my father? I guess he’s right since according to WhoSampled, “2009 was a phenomenal year for sample-based music. Looking at the list of U.S. number-one singles of 2009 to date, it’s astonishing to see that no less than 6 out of 13 are based on samples: Crack a Bottle, Right Round, Poker Face, I Gotta Feeling, Whatcha Say and Empire State of Mind.”

WhoSample is “building the ultimate database of sampled music and cover songs.” This means that if your sought-after tune isn’t entirely original, you will find it here. Some interesting things worth exploring are the most sampled and top sampling artists lists offered by the site. I assumed Michael Jackson will be the artist most sampled, but was surprised to see he only came second after James Brown. I admire both stars, so see below Funky Drummer by James Brown – sampled by many artists, and Don’t Stop The Music by Rihianna  – sampling Michael Jackson’s Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’. Enjoy!

Raise Your Voice – The United Nations Climate Change Conference (Dec 7-18, 2009) has been making headlines since day one, from quotations and hopes of world leaders to violent protests by avid activists. Leaving the ‘Who said what’ aside, it’s important that we all stay informed with the discussions and resolutions made in perhaps the very first global conference that is concerned solely with our climate change predicament.

In this day and age, technology not only makes multiple communication channels available, but also allows collaborations between the different mediums. Raise Your Voice is a TV-Internet symbiotic event which offers users the opportunity to submit their questions, vote on other inquiries and see world leaders interact with ‘ordinary’ folk concerned about our planet and governmental policies.

According to Raise Your Voice, it is a venue where “CNN and YouTube are conducting a live debate in Copenhagen on December 15, where leaders and activists at COP15 will come together to answer your top-ranked questions on climate change.” What are you waiting for? Last day for question submissions (both text and video) is Dec 14!

FarmVille – Back in my university days, I took a business psychology course, where the lecturer claimed that humans are inherently lazy and don’t enjoy working. If that’s true, how can you explain FarmVille’s whopping eight million facebooks fans (and counting)? I guess my lecturer didn’t take into account the scenario of an extremely successful game where work is actually the very essence of the fun?

Chances are, you are already hooked on this game and are part of the growing “farmers” community on facebook, but did you know Zynga also offers a designated site for the game? And for those of you who never heard of FarmVille (shame on you!), it is a game where you “plant crops, take care of farm animals and help your friends grow their farms.” Enjoy the game (or work, however you see it)…

Cameroid – Taking photos or videos of yourself via webcams is yesterday’s news, right? We even published an article discussing 15 cool websites that make wonders with your computer webcam. But neither of these websites or video/conference chat websites offers what Cameroid does: Taking photos of yourself straight from your browser. Create your very own galleries of webcam photos and share them around with friends and family. To see what other users have done with Cameroid, see the two examples below.

Missed Connection – Sophie Blackall, creator of Missed Connections, has taken upon herself an almost impossible mission that is both compelling and inspiring. In her own words: “Every day hundreds of strangers reach out to other strangers on the strength of a glance, a smile or a blue hat. Their messages have the lifespan of a butterfly. I’m trying to pin a few of them down.”

Accompanied by Blackall’s amazing illustrations, each entry (submitted by users) is another soulful hope of capturing that fleeting moment you had when you saw that cute boy at Starbucks. Several examples of Missed Connections’ true power are Doing Laundry in Our Building, and Help with Luggage. I encourage you to submit your personal Missed Connection – you can remain anonymous and simply let out what you’ve been keeping in since that random, unexpected meeting.

Diner City – Have you ever played with the idea of opening your own restaurant? Most people do, I know I did. Even if you never had had the chance or means to pursue that fantasy, now you have the option of playing out the “What If” scenario: “Start your own restaurant business, make lots of money and beat your competitor.” Sounds intriguing, doesn’t? By the way, if you are seriously into the restaurant business games, you might also like Papa’s Pizzeria and Sushi Go Round. For more cool game follow us here.

PlaylistNow – I want to start by giving a big round of applause to the creators of PlaylistNow. Well done, guys! Why the praises? Because the dream team of Jonathan Younes, Franck Nakache and Robin Sabban created a fantastic and fun platform for listening to music on the Internet. What makes PlaylistNow so unique is that you don’t search for music by typing in the name of a band, singer or track title. Instead, users use ‘mood’ keywords such as “I am chilling,” “working at the office,” “studying for an exam,” etc. Each atmosphere statement prompts a list of relevant results, and all you need to do is simply click on the Play button. You’ll be surprised at the accuracy of the site’s results of every search.

I especially enjoyed the I am feeling Gloomy playlist. That’s why I decided to feature below my favorite songs from that list, and I hope you will enjoy my ‘gloomy’ suggestions. More excellent playlists you should check out are I am working at the office (which I am listening to as I’m writing this very post), and I am having a birthday party at home. Think about it; if you are throwing a birthday party at home, you can save cash on a dodgy DJ and celebrate peacefully (or not) your birthday with friends and family. By the way, you can also drag-and-drop songs in each playlist to rearrange their order. Excellent website, great music. Simple.

Goby – Here’s a great example of a search/discovery engine that introduces users to the infinite possibilities of recreation. Whether you’re looking for an unconventional vacation, an elegant weekend getaway or a hike up Mount Monadnock, Goby’s got you covered. How does it work? It is quite simple; when entering into the site, you’ll see three text boxes: What? Where? and When? Once you’ve provided all three parameters of your desired activity, you’ll receive a list of relevant (and extremely interesting) suggestions that will help you nail down that sought-after adventure.

I admire the idea behind Goby, but I must admit that some search results were a bit disappointing. To give an example, the suggestions for “fun activities in NYC” (i.e. things to do in NYC) did not seem like much fun to me (although they could very well be exciting for others).  Perhaps advanced search filters could do the trick… One suggestion I think could work is to add a search parameter of age groups. Despite my rants, I seriously recommend checking out Goby since I believe it has many adventure matches in store for most people.

Thankfulfor – Inspired by the recent Thanksgiving holiday, we decided to feature this lovely website in last week’s Weekly Faves. Thankfulfor is what it sounds like; a website “focused on creating community powered products and services that remind us of the joys of life” or, “a gratitude journal” as the creators like to call it.

In short, thankfulfor hits the benevolence nail on the head by offering a simple, inviting and collectively rewarding service. Using your Twitter login info or Facebook Connect allows you to post your ‘thankful fors’ and share them with your friends. It’s as if chivalry is back, big time, and it could really reach out to millions of users all around the world. We like that!

Random Facts – I love sites that offer a ‘random’ feature (such as photo galleries or funny videos) because of the surprise element they offer. You never know what will come up next – isn’t it exciting? So it shouldn’t come as a total surprise that Random Facts does just that beautifully. Moving your way around this site is simple; click on the Next Fact Button, and you’ll see an interesting fact for you to contemplate on. In addition, you have the option of learning more arbitrarily organized facts within the same category. Here are my personal favorite categories on Random Facts: Marriage, Dogs, Dolphins and China facts.

In terms of my favorite fact, it’s this one: “China invented ice cream, and Marco Polo is rumored to have taken the recipe (along with the recipe for noodles) back with him to Europe.” For this winter season, see below a video showing how to make ice cream out of snow.

InstantShift – When I think about Web design, vibrant, curvy graphics and swanky typography spring to mind. As many others would agree, the Web looks, even feels so much better when the aesthetic dimension is well designed and executed. I truly admire the creative capabilities, even boldness at times, of the professionals working in the Web design industry. In fact, getting Photoshop and Illustrator down is my personal New Year Resolution…

Thanks to the numerous resources of graphic and web design available on the net these days (such as Smashing Magazine and Six Revisions), anyone can make use of the literally hundreds of online tutorials out there and learn to design websites for a living. InstantShift is a great resource for professionals of the industry, but will equally interest those who aren’t that familiar with the meanings of layers and CSS.

InstantShift offers everything you could possibly need or imagine, as long as it’s relevant to this creative field. Get the latest news, cute/sexy/rough icons and themes for your blog, amazing typography, freebies, tools and tutorials, just to name a few. Be sure to RSS to this one – you’ll be glad you did, even if the only thing that’s genuinely theirs is the textual content of each post… I enjoyed InstantShift’s links to beautiful iPhone wallpapers, a collection of icon resources, and also various cool freebies.