Zeus of the ‘NetReviews of the Coolest Sites on the Net

If you own a business, or are in charge of the legal aspect of things for a business, there’s a website that might be able to help you out…and for free!  LawPivot.com is a question and answer site, similar to Quora, except that this site is focused on business legal issues.  And since everyone knows hiring a lawyer (even for a small issue) can be expensive, this site can help ‘treps and others save lots of money.

The process is pretty simple and straightforward.  There are two options; you can either ask a confidential question or a public question.  If you ask a confidential question, LawPivot will suggest relevant lawyers to answer your questions and then you can send your questions to those lawyers or others that you hand-select.  If you ask a public question the LawPivot community lawyers will answer your question in a public forum where others will be able to benefit as well.

I think it’s a great idea for a site that will definitely be able to save business owners lots of money while also helping to find a good lawyer if the issue is a more complex one.  As always I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Similar to Flipboard in terms of aesthetics, Zite is different in that content is compiled using automated algorithms that find & deliver articles that have “buzz” (i.e. pieces of content that are being discussed on websites, blogs, and social media).  According to their website Zite “is a free, personalized iPad magazine that understands what you like and gets smarter every time you use it.”

Since content isn’t chosen by a person on Zite, personalization plays an important role.  This means that when a user engages with a piece of content, shares it on Twitter, and/or (most importantly) when they give it a “thumbs up”, that user will be more likely to see similar content in the future.  On the flip side, when they don’t engage with certain pieces of content or when they give content a “thumbs down” they will begin to see less and less of that type of content in the future.  This personalization based on user interaction is what differentiates Zite from all of the other news reader apps (very similar to what Pandora does in the music space).

So if you’ve got an iPad, I’d recommend downloading Zite to test out for yourself.  And as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

*Update* Yesterday (12/9) Zite released their new app for the iPhone. After downloading it I definitely recommend checking it out if you’re an iPhone owner!

If you answered yes to any of these, then you should check out a site called Betterfly.com.  Basically Betterfly helps you to find service providers such as hair stylists, language coaches, massage therapists, and Zumba instructors that are in your local area.  Their website is easy to use and the search and filter options work very well.  In addition to having a great looking site, they also have many cool features.  The first and most important thing that a service provider site needs is reviews!  Thanks to Yelp reviews are a MUST especially for service related offerings.  The nice thing about the reviews on this site is that they are categorized according to the service that’s being provided, which ensures that they are relevant (this is important if a provider offers multiple services across several domains).

Another thing that I think is a great idea is the ‘Availability’ feature.  Betterfly allows providers to show their availability with the option for potential client’s to book directly online!  You can’t ask for a more quick and easy process!  So if you’ve been wanting to learn a new language, find a new hair stylist, treat yourself to a massage, or get back in shape, then go check out Betterfly today!

This is actually the first time I’ve done a post on an app (although it can also be played on Facebook) and not a website.  With the explosion of smart phones and Internet capable mobile devices, I thought it was time that I started sharing cool, interesting, and/or fun apps that I come across as well.  I’ve always been a big trivia buff myself (Trivial Pursuit is hands down one of my favorite games) and so one day I decided to see if there were any good, and free, trivia apps out there (for the iPhone).  Out of the dozens and dozens, one in particular called QRANK stood out.

The graphics and interface are easily the best I’ve seen from a free app but what put it over the top was the original idea of the game itself (format, etc.) and then of course the questions too.  Now let me talk about the questions for a minute.  I would say this app is geared towards someone who is into trivia games and considers themselve a trivia buff.  I say that because most of the questions are on the medium to difficult side.  That being said though, I think the ‘Play Live’ feature makes it enjoyable for all audiences.

All around this has been the best (graphics, content, interface, & ease of use) free app I’ve come across.  If you have an iPhone and like trivia, I highly recommend downloading this app!

If you’re like the 99.9% of people in the world who like saving money and getting a great deal, then I think you’ll like this site.  ZingSale.com is a free service that finds great deals on products that are sold all across the web and will track the price and then alert you when it goes down by more than 10%.  From CDs and DVDs, to Toys, Apparel, Shoes, Jewelry and more, you name it and they will track it for you and send you an email if the price drops.

I really like the design of the site, it’s very clean and intuitive which makes it that much more of a pleasurable experience (on top of saving money!).  Also thought I’d mention, with Black Friday coming up, that they have a Black Friday Deals section where you can avoid the crowds and instead add a price alert for any gifts you are planning on buying.

ZingSale currently tracks the prices of over 350,000 products and on average saves users of the site 43% on their purchases.  Now that’s what I’m talkin about!

If you’re like me and love to try new foods then you might find this site interesting.  It’s a combination of Yelp and Foursquare in that the focus is on restaurants and users can earn points and badges.  However instead of multiple reviews/descriptions this site makes food the star (as it should be).  Foodspotting allows users (aka Foodspotters) to either upload or email pictures of the food they’ve tried at various local restaurants.  From there the community can nominate (known as “noms”) the foods they’ve tried and liked the best.  Users can earn points and keep running lists of foods ‘spotted’, ‘nommed’, and ‘wanted’, of course in addition to earning badges such as ‘Seafood’, ‘Dessert’, and ‘Sushi’.

They also have a very cool (and free) iPhone app that perfectly replicates the website experience.  I think an app like this is absolutely necessary for a website in this niche and they definitely hit the nail on the head.  If you have an iPhone I highly recommend downloading the app (just go to the App Store and search ‘foodspotting’).  So what do you guys think, next time you’re hungry but don’t know where to go would you consider checking out Foodspotting?

Luckily we’ve moved past the days of having to use a paper phonebook to find local service providers (I mean really, who uses the YellowPages anymore?). Now we’re onto bigger and better options. We now have local search directories such as Google Places, Yahoo Local, and Bing Local, just to name a few. However all of these new local directories lack a few things. They essentially act the same way as the old YellowPages did, listing a business’ address, phone number, product/service offerings, etc. with the added bonus of some reviews mixed in.  While this is a step in the right direction, Redbeacon takes it one step further.

Users can submit a request for whatever type of service they are looking for and can specify when, where, and exactly what they need to have done. Redbeacon will then send out a message to those service providers that match your criteria (that have of course created a Provider Services account) and then those providers can bid on your service request. From there you get to choose which provider you want to go with, based on their bid price, reviews, etc. Best of all this can all be done online, absolutely FREE.

In my opinion this site has a lot of potential. However I think for it to really take off, it’s going to need a lot of qualified service providers actively involved and bidding on service requests. What do you guys think, would you consider using Redbeacon for your local business needs?

You might have already heard about this site but I thought I’d share it with those who might not have (or for those who have and weren’t sure what it was all about).  Foursquare is for use on mobile devices (specifically smart phones like the iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Palm, etc.) but can also be used via text message for those users on non-smart phones within the U.S.  After downloading the Foursquare app onto your phone (completely free) you can begin to ‘check-in’ at different locations.  The check-in process is based on your location (using GPS) and is pretty simple; all you need to do is select your correct location from the list.  If for some reason the business/location is not listed you can add it and then check-in.  You can also leave a short message, 140 characters or less, describing your experience.  Sounds interesting.

The question is why would anyone use this?  To address this issue, Foursquare has created a game style format with points and badges where you can login in at the end of each month and see your stats.  The ultimate goal behind this is to become “mayor” of a certain business location (your local Starbucks for example) which is achieved by checking in at a particular location more times than any other fellow Foursquarer.  Once you are mayor of that location you unlock the mayor’s badge and in some instances can receive a discount off of purchases ($1 off purchases at Starbucks) simply for being mayor of that location.

I think there’s a lot of potential in this new geo check-in arena but Foursquare is dealing with quite a few competitors at the moment and some pretty formidable ones at that (Yelp).  It will be interesting to see how it all unfolds over the next 6-12 months.  What do you think, would you use a service like this?

Me too!  But since we all know that’s not possible (at least not without a flux capacitor) let’s talk about a site that will get you as close as possible to time travel.  In existence since the very early days of the internet (1995) Archive.org has archived nearly every website, audio, live music, text, and moving image that has been posted online in the last fifteen years.  Most users of this site however take advantage of the coolest feature called the “Wayback Machine” (with a top speed of 88 mph… OK I’ll stop).  With over 150 billion pages currently in its archive the Wayback Machine has the most extensive collection of webpages on the internet today.

It works like this: users go to the site and type in the URL of a website (let’s use Yahoo as our example) and then click ‘Take Me Back’.  It then takes you to a search results page that has the years, number of pages, as well as links with exact dates of went a snapshot was taken.  For example the earliest snapshot of Yahoo.com was on October 17, 1996 and links to this snapshot. This can be done for most websites in existence (with a few exceptions).

So just thought I’d share this neat tool that can be used for research or for those of us with a curious streak.  Whichever reason you decide to use it, I’m sure you’ll find it to be a valuable resource! (I’m sure Doc Brown would have agreed…alright I lied!).

Have you ever wanted to show someone a funny or cool scene from a movie but couldn’t find it on YouTube?  Or Google?  Well this site’s got you covered.  Currently still in beta, Movieclips.com has over 12,000 clips (from 6 major Hollywood studios) that range from “Dirty Harry” to “When Harry Met Sally” and everything in between.  With HD quality videos and a similar layout to both Hulu and Vevo, this site has got what it takes.

With the standard social media elements integrated into the site (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) this site has got all of the bases covered there too.  So after you find that scene you’ve been looking for you can share it with all of your friends.