If you’re a b-ball freak and think of your basketball as carryon luggage, then CourtsOftheWorld is for you. This website focuses entirely on basketball courts: finding them, rating them, and setting up meets for pickup games.
The site was built by M4K1, a German design and tech firm, specializing in hybrid virtual-to-real-world connections. Like CourtsOfTheWorld.
CourtsOfTheWorld itself is a user-driven site that features a lot of the social networking things you’d expect as well as Google Mapping of the court locations on file. Users can submit their own favorite courts and many include cell phone or digital photographs and even video of players hustling their game.
Registration is free and setting up a profile can be as simple as a username-password combination (along with a generic avatar) or you can build a complete player profile for yourself. You can also list yourself as a sideliner-only (one who likes to watch, but doesn’t play) and give information on your play style, handicaps, and so forth.
Most of the courts listed are in the United States and Germany, of course, but a growing list of courts from around the globe are appearing. I found two in Prague, for instance, and a few in Australia as well. So the site is growing.
CourtsOfTheWorld is totally basketball-centric, but with their somewhat generic name, I won’t be surprised if they don’t expand into other court-based games like tennis and racquetball. Doing so would definitely expand their appeal.
I can see this site getting popular fast and, so far, it seems to be doing just that. At the very least, it’s a social platform for players to interact and talk game, but for those who travel and want to get some pickups instead of the usual boredom at the gym, this might be the answer.
Website flipping has become an extremely popular way of making money online. Creating websites and reselling them through such mediums as eBay or Sitepoint is something we see occurring more and more every day.
The remarkable thing I have come to notice during my research, is that the majority of the websites listed actually sell, no matter how many times similar sites have been listed and sold. If you’re looking to begin your journey into site flipping, where and how would you begin? That is where I discovered, there are even sites offering scripts for flippers to make websites from, to keep listing and flipping over and over.
An example of one such script site is Buy That Script, which offers a variety of $5.00 “scripts”. Yes, I said $5.00 to buy a script to make a website from. Don’t expect anything fancy from this site, it is just a clean simple page. Besides already made scripts, you can also purchase developed websites that are ready to upload, re-brand and if you wish, redesign and resell. This isn’t a new feature of course, as there are plenty of other websites that do the same thing that Buy That Script does, however, what sets them apart is the customer support, the ridiculously low prices, and the fact that they have their own developers in case you want to develop something they don’t currently offer. Buy That Script even enables their users to request that custom script they don’t offer at amazingly low rates.
Competitive prices, an easy checkout system, and a top of the line customer support system makes Buy That Script worth checking out. If you are looking for an introductory way to get into site flipping, I recommend that you make this your first stop. They are cheap & reliable. We will see how my experience buying a script works.
Let’s face it. Twitter is taking over the world. Everywhere you look, there’s a new Twitter app, another person Tweeting, or Oprah twitting from her iPhone. The phenomenon has grown so fast that it seems the apps aren’t really keeping up. The ways of adding Tweet feeds to your site are fairly few and far between. Most are site or host-specific. Not so with ImageTwit.
This is one of the better Twitter tools I’ve seen so far. It’s basically a simple web-based app that generates a dynamic image that updates with your latest tweets in real time. It can be used as a website widget, a signature line addition, or just about anything else. If a place allows HTML encoding (namely tags), then you can use ImageTwit there.
The setup is very easy and, as the site’s demonstration video shows, can be done in about 3 minutes (or less). It’s very customizable, so you can match it to your site’s color scheme, your preferred size, and so forth. Best of all, the creators built it for under $100!
Very cool and very useful. Definitely on our list of “cool stuff.”
“Share and discover film locations” is this site’s motto and that’s exactly what Filmaps does. It’s a Google Maps mashup that combines movies with social networking.
Filmaps basically allows for movie searches by title or location including the interesting ability to find out what movies were made at a specific location. For instance, looking for movies by title and then narrowing by location might show you that San Francisco has a theater playing the film you’re looking for. Switching the search and looking at what films were made in San Francisco will show you Dirty Harry.
Once you find a movie (or movies), you can leave comments about the film for others to read, send Tweets (each film has a permalink), and otherwise share you film finds with friends. Users can ad information (comments, locations, movies not listed) easily and no registration with the site is required—an unusual feature.
Filmaps also works on the iPhone and was created with the idea that sometimes you’re watching a movie and wonder “wow, I wonder what else is there?” when watching scenes. So you can use Filmaps to find out where the film was actually shot, what other movies were made there, and otherwise explore the area with Google Maps.
This is a good idea that, if kept simple, will be one to see a lot of interest from everyday Web users. It’s appeal seems limited until you actually go and use the sight. Pretty soon, you’ll be looking up all your favorite movies and seeing what else was filmed there and maybe hitting the nearest Redbox to grab some of them.
Group decisions are a pain. Some project management sites offer voting or other setups for making semi-democratic decisions in a group setting, but most of the time this need is overlooked. If it’s not overlooked, like with MS Project, it’s buried in the tools list somewhere.
While not specifically project-targeted, DecideAlready is a very specific tool meant to do one thing: facilitate group decision making. It seeks to eliminate most of the chaos, lack of participation, and pointless discussion that group decisions (via meetings) usually entail.
Gone are the days of “reply all” email threads that go on for three days with fifteen participants and eight different conversation threads embedded in them. At least, that’s what DecideAlready hopes.
I couldn’t agree with them more, myself. Conference calls aren’t any better. Ten minute calls to “make a decision” always end up being half an hour or more. That’s just how the game is played. DecideAlready has some good and simple mechanics that get the job done.
First, the instigator creates a question, a list of possible answers, and a list of peers to send it to. The app takes over from there, sending the query to the list so they can click through to choose an answer. This is the simple version—no frills, no muss.
The next step up is the “ranked” version which lets answers be prioritized so that ranked answers can be given (this one first, then this one, then that one). More complex questions can be group-answered in this manner, so when the question of whether coffee, a cold water cooler, or Danish rolls are most important at the next meeting is asked…
The Advanced version has sliders where ranks can be based on criteria and moderated in this way. For extremely complex issues, this might be the way to go.
Overall, DecideAlready is a good tool that fills a specific task. It probably won’t replace management meetings, or the excuses offered to have them, but at least it can make the meetings more productive. One thing it can’t do is provide catering…
Foursquare hit the streets running at this weekend’s SXSW. It not only allows your mobile to connect to Twitter (and therefore your followers), but it ads a few things that Twitter doesn’t have. Namely the ability to (actually) find your Twitter friends when in the same place at the same time, in real life.
Instead of ambiguous “I’m at Nino’s Pizza” or “I’m over by the fountain at Seaworld” directions, how about a map?
Foursquare was built by the guys who made Dodgeball, that now-dead Google app that became quite the underground hit. Basically, Foursquare works with Google Maps and Twitter, together.
First, you tell the app where you are (text/SMS to 50500) and then post shouts based on your location and what you’re doing. Looking for friends or places to meet is easy (thanks to Google Maps, which auto-centers on where you 50500′d). All of the friends near you (who’re using Foursquare) can be seen on the map too.
The other half of Foursquare is the “game.” Every time you check in, you earn points. Interesting check-ins (like check-ins with details) gives you badges. Points eventually ad up to extra features that unlock as you use the app.
It’s a fresh and innovative approach to Twitter-finding, for sure. I suspect that it’s users will be limited in number (since it’s appeal is rather narrow), but cult-like zealots in their fanaticism for it.
Twitter users, especially those who keep multiple accounts for various uses, will want to see this one. Maybe you have one account for business, one to promote a website as a feed blaster, and one for personal use. Maybe you have several accounts, one for each website? In any case, you’ll be very interested in EasyTweets.
This is more than just a browser plug-in or a quick-swap method to go from one account to the next. This tool is for power users that really push Twitter as far as it will go, but don’t like the restrictions a downloadable app entails.
EasyTweets is Web-based and very powerfully versatile. It’s not often we come across tools like this that are actually useful—beyond the usual. It offers multiple account management, alerts when your brand is mentioned on Twitter, post-scheduled messages, RSS feed auto-posting, trend monitoring, Tweet-to-email conversions, and more.
This is a great tool if you’re into Twitter as more than just a way to blast the occasional comment about McDonald’s or whether Brittany’s new hair is in style. Beyond managing multiple Twitter accounts, the real power of this tool comes from it’s ability to auto-post and pre-post items.
Like a blog, EasyTweets allows you to post things and set a publish date for them, so they’ll automatically be sent at a specific time. Auto-posting is also extremely valuable, as you can plug RSS feeds in so that when they update, the post is automatically sent. So maybe you have a blog and a Twitter account to match it as a “post blaster.” Well, now it’s automated for you so you don’t have to bother doing both jobs.
The trend monitoring and graphing is also extremely useful if you have a niche or semi-niche blog or website. You can track how often your brand is mentioned on Twitter, get notices when (and where) it’s mentioned, and see how your niche is building.
Another great tool, especially for the obsessive Tweeters, is the SMS or email alerts you can have sent to you when any (or specific) accounts receive tweets from their network or when your brand is mentioned—as part of the above tracking. For smart phone users, this could be highly useful.
Again, it’s not often that we see truly useful tools for social networking sites like Twitter. These tools either blatantly fall into the “yet another browser plug-in” category or the “I use Twitter for spamming” genre. It’s only rarely that they fall into the “holy crap, that’s actually useful” group.
EasyTweets is one of that last bunch: useful, even for non-marketing types.
Let’s be honest for a minute. We all may not have rigged our neighbors bathroom with a shower spy cam, and we may not have binoculars powerful enough to let us see topless alien sunbathers on Mars.
But we’re all voyeurs. And we’re all competitive.
That’s why scripted realty shows like “The Bachelor” rake in big-time cash for the networks. We like to judge attractive people in a setting where we can’t be judged in return. (Hey, sometimes we’re wearing our fat pants and haven’t showered yet). CanDoBetter.com understands our not-so-secret urges, and successfully (and innocently) preys on these insecurities online.
CanDoBetter does just what it says: It lets you judge randomly generated couples from user-submitted pics. Of course, you can also press your luck with ogling mob and see whether you can do better in this mock relationship – or your virtual match deserves a better mate. If voters feel two users are the perfect match, they can fittingly choose this option, too. If you’re as old as me, you might remember an predecessor: HotorNot!
By registering on the site (it’s free), you can view your own stats, it’s just like a virtual baseball card! You can even manage multiple photos and get widgets to post on your blog or website. You can also easily hook up through Facebook.
So whether you simply like passing shallow judgments on others or you think you’re pretty hot stuff, check out CanDoBetter. Because right now, you can’t.
Why Did I Start VOIS? Why Did We Launch The First Social Sourcing Site Now?
There are a lot of bad websites out there. A lot.
Websites with 8-bit graphics seemingly ripped from Atari games, with laughable copy errors that immediately diminish credibility, and with such awful usability that you need a Dr. Phil intervention to calm down after surfing through the third-rate portals.
This is one reason I co-founded VOIS.com (pronounced VOICE), or Virtual Outsourcing is Social. Not only can VOIS’ collaborative approach to completing projects produce superior results – from slickly branded and intuitive websites to fun, traffic-churning widgets – but it can also make it more affordable for businesses.
Don’t get me wrong; this is not the business owners’ faults. As a blogger for a major food website, I can say first hand that these are good people with the best of intentions. But just because someone knows how to make donuts, pizza or surfboards, it doesn’t mean they should know how to create a compelling online storefront. And hiring expensive firms on retainer often isn’t a workable business model for small and medium-sized businesses, or even larger firms that don’t have the bandwidth to handle their current business needs.
That’s why VOIS seeks to connect clients with expert Web professionals – from designers to developers and copywriters – to work on a project basis. What separates us from other business match-making platforms is that we allow and encourage the clients and talent to get to know each other first by exploring robust online profiles and messaging back and forth.
Click-and-mortar, web-driven start-ups have also had to change their game plan, and VOIS was developed for these businesses, too. With start-up capital tougher and tougher to attract, it’s no longer feasible for someone to hire developer and a CTO, build an infrastructure from scratch, then roll out and ramp up a product. I’ve met many people who 
have burned through $500,000 before looking at a more cost-efficient way of doing things.
And I really feel VOIS is that new way of doing things. We’re keeping VOIS wide open in terms of the scope of projects we accommodate – no niche focus or specialized tunnel vision. This will help us attract more users and offer truly turnkey solutions for our users.
So as the VOIS community grows, fueled by this added interpersonal dimension, I look forward at seeing some truly amazing work forged through the power of online collaboration. In other words, no more bad websites, or half-completed start-ups that could have been the next big thing.
In fact, I think VOIS is the next big thing.
3banana is a Silicon Valley startup that just appeared on the market, launching a new note-taking application (called 3banana Notes) for the Android, the iPhone, and small-device Web use.
The application is free and works by synchronizing with an online notebook so you can save information you want to save quickly and easily from your phone. This allows free access online, whether you have your phone with your or not.
The app has a wireless synch-up and allows for social media sharing. Think of it as Twitter for your iPhone, but with a few more uses. Notes can be shared or kept private, as you prefer, and on an individual basis. So if you’re wanting to jot down that next great American novel idea you came up with, you can keep that to yourself, but if you’re wanting to see if anyone is up for coffee on the corner of Johnson and Main, you can broadcast that to your friends.
Andreas Schobel, the co-founder of 3banana and its CTO, says, “…the 3banana note taking app helps you catch those ideas before they escape. 3banana also makes it easy to share your notes with friends—rather than being lost forever, that idea in your notes can be the beginning of an online conversation.”
This seems like a great idea and one that could catch on quickly. Especially since it will work on so many platforms of portable phone. More universal apps like this are needed, in my opinion, to stop the trend of “it’s all about the iPhone.” Not that I don’t like iPhones, I just want to see more competition so the technology will improve faster.
Probably the sum-up from Steve Brown, the CEO and other co-founder of 3banana, does it best: “In the information-rich and fast-paced world today, the challenge is to get information from the brain in your head, into the brain in your pocket, and connected to the brainpower in the Internet cloud. We streamlined and simplified our note taking app so that users could quickly jot down a thought or tag a photo on their Android smart phone with as few keystrokes as possible, and then synch and share those notes wirelessly and effortlessly.”
Basically, it works like this: the 3banana software stays synched with their online service so that photos and notes on the smart phone can be immediately stored and kept online. At the same time, websites, online notes, and other Internet-based information can also be kept through a browser interface. Synchs in Twitter-like feeds with friends and colleagues can also be set up so that it creates an “always on” cloud for data sharing.
Shared notes can be linked with Twitter or Facebook for wide broadcasts or can be kept inside 3banana for easier and more private sharing and discussion.
3banana is currently available for download from the Google Android App Market free of charge.
