My Web Toy is Bigger Than Yours

Polling tool that allows real time update of charts

2008-08-30T11:37:00.001-04:00

How many times have you been in a meeting and wanted to get a private poll of a particular question and allow the group to see the responses real-time...WITHOUT having to supply them with devices or a PC to do so...you then ask, how would they vote? Simple...with the most ubiquitous device on the planet these days...the mobile phone/smart phone (i.e. iPhone). Simply direct them to SMS their answer and their results show up either on a website or powerpoint slide that updates automagically....VERY cool.

Use for small groups for free or pay a modest monthly fee for much larger audiences...

Check it out at www.polleverywhere.com

Here is my first try a this:

Simple Weather

2007-04-21T07:48:00.000-04:00

In this world of complexity and multitasking there is Simple Weather.

Geneology with Geni!

2007-01-17T13:18:00.000-05:00

This site (http://www.geni.com) let's you map out your family tree, and invite them to map out theirs.... It should spread like wildfire.

Funny, I had an idea to do this in 2002. I bought the domains "GatherTown.com" and "PeopleGathering.com". Unfortunatly, I never got around to doing it. Too bad!

Currently the site got nailed with the digg effect and is down. I can only imagine their traffic! 50,000 diggers, each adding 10 family members who get emails, and so on.... It would be exponential over time for a couple days. Wow... I bet their site is down for the whole day.

Oh yeah - I'm back.... :) Jason - Why haven't you blogged the phone service I found - Grand Central???

You Don't Know Jack!

2007-01-14T18:06:00.000-05:00

Remember this game from the early 90s? This totally addictive party game is now back in true web2.0 fashion. In my opinion, this has always been the best pop culture trivia game out there...Enjoy!

You Don't Know Jack!

Mapwing - Create your own virtual tours

2007-01-14T17:39:00.000-05:00

Here is a great idea..A way to create your own virtual tours by uploading various photos and registering the directions, so you can walk people through your house, your favorite vacation spot, etc.

Actually pretty slick - I haven't tried it out yet - trying to figure out the application (it depends on whether or not you can keep it secured to a select group of users).

Mapwing

FanNation

2007-01-06T08:42:00.000-05:00

FanNation is an excellent web2.0 site for fans of all kinds of sports (NFL, NHL, MLB, NCAAF, NCAAB, Fantasy). You add you favorite teams and you can keep up to date on the latest news, blog posts, scores, records, schedules, etc.

It is a very fun site to use, which is always important to us web2.0 fanatics.

Register and add all of your teams - Enjoy!

CrowdSpirit - Groupthinking new product ideas

2007-01-06T08:26:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting idea on a web2.0 way to bring new products to fruition using the community at large to submit ideas, vote on them and collaborate on their development to the point they are primed for funding, for which this site has partnerships with investors or you can invest your own $$ in the projects. This has the potential to change the way that product development is done...involving the end customers to "build their own products." Pretty cool!

I love the idea and will love to participate...

http://www.crowdspirit.org/

Top 100 web2.0 Sites

2007-01-02T15:30:00.000-05:00

Here is a great list of one guy's opinion on the top 100.

Some of the best are in the comments...

Etsy - Handmade Goods for Sale

2006-12-29T08:10:00.000-05:00

Etsy is sort of like eBay for handmade goods. This is very cool for people that make their own stuff to sell to other people who like handmade goods. There are some great things for sale out here if you are into this kinda thing. I really like handmade kids clothes that you can't find anywhere else. WAY too many kids are wearing the same clone-clothes these days (Gymboree, Gap, Old Navy, Children's Place) I love seeing kids wearing originals.

Anyway, enjoy Etsy.

Bix - Online Talent Show

2006-12-29T07:42:00.000-05:00

In the same category as another site I posted about recently (Singshot), Bix is a great online talent show where you can compete in several different categories from modeling, drawing, singing, etc.

Not a bad site. There are some fairly talented people out there. Yahoo has their own talent show site called just that, Yahoo Talent Show

Jambo Networks - Proximity Awareness for Social Networking

2006-12-29T07:05:00.000-05:00

OK, It's been a while since I have posted - I apologize, but it's that time of year when nothing much else gets done but spending quality time with the family, eating delicious food and watching football....

I decided my first post back would be about this great service called Jambo Networks

This site allows you to link all of your social networking sites to a service that "sniffs" other nearby users (within 6 blocks) whom share similar profiles/interests and allows you to discover them to start up a conversation in their own chat application. I admit, I can't wait to give it a shot. Check out the video on their site to see how it works...I will report back and update this post once I have had a chance to make my first connection.

Cogmap - Wikipedia for Org Charts

2006-11-23T09:54:00.000-05:00

Ok - every once in a while I am surprised by a web2.0 offering - something that I never knew we really needed until I saw it. How many companies have org charts that go stale the moment you print them. Well, here is a solution. A living, breathing org chart that allows anyone to edit it at any time. It is called cogmap and it is just plain cool!

I checked out my company (Accenture) and saw that it was pretty accurate and better then anything I have ever seen our company put together ourselves. I made a small edit (not sure I got it right, but if not, someone else will come behind and correct it). The power of Web2.0!

ConceptShare

2006-11-12T20:37:00.000-05:00

Here is a very nice tool/site that allows team members to collaborate on a visual project of some sort. Great for advertising and graphic arts production teams that are dispersed across multiple geographic locations. Looks very slick, slim and functional. Good work guys!

I love that the demo is done on a mac!

www.conceptshare.com

Let Google Analyze your Website

2006-11-11T17:19:00.000-05:00

This is a MUST-HAVE tool for all webmasters. If you are a data geek like me (and have some websites you want to track usage statistics on) you will LOVE what Google has done (once again). Register your site and enjoy all the cool graphs...

http://analytics.google.com

Another website heatmapper

2006-11-11T17:15:00.000-05:00

Here is a yet another nice website heatmapper. You register your site and it shows you where people are clicking your web pages (based on screen coordinates). This one looks friendly and slick. If you are a webmaster of a high traffic site this should be in your list of management tools.

http://clickdensity.com

Event Wax - Host an Event in Web2.0

2006-11-11T17:09:00.000-05:00

Pretty nice - still struggling with how I would use this at this point. But what I like about it is its simple interface and slim idea. They open sourced ticketmaster in a sense...Create events and sell tickets to your own events....Let's see where this goes..

Eventwax

A web2.0 diet finder

2006-11-11T16:14:00.000-05:00

Answer some easy questions on an ajax control and this site returns a list of ranked diets perfect for the results/methods you are looking for. Very nice and fast and very good content.

http://diettelevision.com/index.html

My Uninstalled Life

2006-11-09T08:28:00.000-05:00

One of my readers sent me a link to his excellent blog. I am now an avid reader, because I really do believe in his philosophy (that we will eventually not have ANY installed applications - we will use all web based apps). I believe this happens when high bandwidth web access is everywhere..It won't be long.

Check out this great blog: http://www.myuninstalledlife.com/

iScrybe Beta

2006-10-28T13:14:00.000-04:00

Check out this preview video for an application that I am dying to try out. It is a web2.0 calendar/organizing application that looks to be leap years ahead of its competitors. I like many of the features demonstrated, but have yet to see anything about synching with outlook. Microsoft needs to really kick it up a notch with its Live offering if they are going to keep up with some of this stuff. Very nice work Scrybe. I can't wait to play with it when it is released.

www.iscrybe.com

A Digg-like Quote site

2006-10-21T08:48:00.000-04:00

This is a pretty nice site for quotes where you can search and rate famous quotes. A great tool to use when you need that great line for that presentation, speech or to inspire the troops.

http://quotiki.com/

MotherClick is now online

2006-10-21T07:55:00.000-04:00

MothersClick (which I posted about several weeks back) is now online. Seems pretty neat, if you are a momma that is...

Web 2.0 Movie Editor

2006-10-20T21:37:00.000-04:00

Man - the limits of this web2.0 technology continue to be stretched. This is a very slick online movie editor (MovieMasher) with all kinds of nice features. I have not tried it myself (no reason to move from iMovie on my Mac just yet), but this could be a very nice option for those without any good editing software. Hmmm, seem like a likely acquisition target for YouTube (Google) at some point? Upload your vids and then edit them right online...or better yet, allow others to edit them for you for a small fee??!?!? That's a great mashup idea that actually has $$ at the other end.

Get on it Dana!

http://www.moviemasher.com/

Every episode of The Office online

2006-10-20T21:33:00.000-04:00

Here are all of the episodes of the US version of The Office online encoded as .swf files. Not the best quality, but still on demand and fun.

(updated link)
tvlinks.voodeedoo.org

Enjoy!

Awesome online collaborative flow charts

2006-10-14T17:34:00.000-04:00

Ok - now this is very slick. It's called gliffy How many times have you been working on a new process flow with someone or a team on the other end of the phone while trying to describe what you are drawing on the whiteboard? Ok...just me eh?

Check this out - very slick and very fast packed with all kinds of features.

I can't wait to try it out with my remote teams next week. We need to define a better environment management process and I think we'll try this out...

Give it a try - register in a few simple steps and you are off and running..

Singshot - A YouTube for Karaoke

2006-10-14T08:42:00.000-04:00

Be Warned....Some of the recordings that people have posted are, um.....bad.

Now you can listen to everyone's karaoke recordings and even record your own with this great site called Singshot. See if you can move up in the rankings to become the top karaoke singer in the world.

I must say, this is all kinds of fun. I am already addicted.

Awesome iPod Cases

2006-10-14T08:27:00.000-04:00

Ok Ok Ok - I know...this is yet another non-web toy, but still very cool.

Check out these very inventive ipod cases. They even have the first ruggedized ipod case for kids.

Check out the great site at http://ifrogz.com/index.php

Microsoft Max

2006-10-09T16:27:00.000-04:00

A great new "app" looking for a reason to be. I have found it to be an excellent RSS reader - I love the interface. I am not sure what to do with the photo lists yet - I am sure it will come to me the more I use it....

http://www.microsoft.com/max/

Enjoy and let me know what you have done with it...

The Ultimate Computer Interface

2006-10-04T21:01:00.000-04:00

I flipped when I saw this. Thanks Dan for the link to this - unbelievable. We have dreamed about this type of touch interface to the computers we interact with everyday.

Take 5 minutes and marvel at the future:

http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=j_han&flashEnabled=1

Get paid to post (blogs)

2006-10-02T22:32:00.000-04:00

Here is a novel concept. Get paid by advertisers to post something about a product/service on your blog.

Hmm, definitely a controversial topic that is getting tons of press today.

I like the idea so much I decided to sign up to see what it is all about and was quite impressed with their site and presentation.

They actually use some nifty web2.0 technologies and makes the site genuinely interesting and fun to use.

Now - does this mean I am (or will) write stories on the behalf of the advertisers?? Hmm - good question. What is it worth to admonish all objectivity in this forum?

The key is I get to choose which offers I will accept to write about. I don't need to accept an offer from an advertiser of a company where I don't have interest in their product.

A post for my wife

2006-10-02T22:07:00.000-04:00

Ok - I finally had to do it. I had to post about something my wife would care about. She asks me all the time, "Who the heck reads this thing?" "Why do they care about what you think about these toys?"

Jen - here's a webtoy that you might care something about (when it opens for business that is...)

It is a place for moms to share their experiences in something they call MothersClick. I guess we will have to wait until October 17th to see what it's all about....

Viral Video Chart

2006-10-01T09:18:00.000-04:00

This is a site that ranks the top viral videos on all of the sharing video sites like YouTube, Google Video and others. Think of it as a one stop shop to find all the most popular vids out there right now. Be the first of your friends to find that hilarious video and forward to everyone and their mother.

http://www.viralvideochart.com/

A Real Garage Toy

2006-09-30T16:43:00.000-04:00

Ok - not a webtoy, but certainly a toy of sorts...

I just had to share the news of a great product that I just purchased. I am an organization freak and have been eyeing the Gladiator Garage Works product line from Whirlpool for quite some time.

I finally invested in some of the stuff and put it to great use. For about $250 USD I was able to outfit one full side of my garage with 2 rows of the track and a bunch of accessories.

Calling for all of your Favorites

2006-09-24T21:15:00.000-04:00

Ok - enough of us posting these great web2.0 finds. Its time to hear from you, our loyal blogbase.

If you have a webtoy, site, or gadget that you really love post a comment here and I will check it out and do a writeup on it.

I think we'll find out best stuff this way.

Share Your Collections With the World

2006-09-24T10:04:00.000-04:00

Do you collect stuff? Is it gathering dust? Have you been thinking about getting rid of it because the thrill is gone?

Well, this web toy might just be what you are looking for. It is a collection site where you upload pictures and descriptions of your stuff and share them with the world.

www.squirl.com

The Internet Address Book

2006-09-24T07:30:00.000-04:00

Here is a tool that attempts to be the single source for finding people on the internet by searching all of the various social networking sites. A true mashup...

I usually don't write about Social Networking tools as I quite frankly thing there are too many, which is problematic for the issue they are trying to solve. This site helps bring them all together in a sense.

http://www.internetaddressbook.com/

Grazr: RSS Feed Reader

2006-09-23T21:28:00.000-04:00

Here is a nice feed reader that allows you "graze" as many feeds as you want without having to subscribe to them, which gets to be a hassle (for those that are RSS reader geeks).

Once again - another web2.0 property uses the small single 'r' at the end of their name to capitalize on the flickr phenomenon.

Check out www.grazr.com

Amazing Guitar Skills

2006-09-20T08:48:00.000-04:00

OK - this has nothing to do with Web2.0 (well, its hosted on YouTube), but this is freakin' awesome. I am a musician myself and can't stop wondering how long it took this dude to master this...For the geeks out there you'll love the tune too...

Check this out:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=aZpD0btOZx8&mode=related&search=

You can also check out his other stuff on his blog.

Enjoy!

Record a Podcast with your Phone

2006-09-17T10:09:00.000-04:00

This is fun. A simple podcasting service that allows you to record a podcast with any recording device including your cell phone. You can then embed your evoca podcast on your website. I will try one later when I don't have Playhouse Disney playing loudly in the background.

http://www.evoca.com/

Predict Airfares with FareCast

2006-09-17T09:58:00.000-04:00

This is an interesting find. A way to predict the airfares between 2 chosen cities (not all cities are currently represented) during a given date range based on historical prices and current trends.

http://www.farecast.com/

A Great Visual List of Web2.0 Sites

2006-09-17T09:50:00.000-04:00

Here is a nice site that organizes all of the web2.0 sites out there by their logos. It is a really great way to find new sites by clicking the logos that most appeal to you.

Click on the logo and it will give you a nice description of what the site is, so you don't have to waste your time with yet another social networking startup/mashup. (seriously, how many of them can there be???)

http://www.go2web20.net/

SquareSpace

2006-09-15T00:32:00.000-04:00

Squarespace (http://www.squarespace.com/) is offering blogging and web sites for the low, low price of $7/month for 2GB xfer max. Ummmm... Isn't this free through countless other places, not to mention blogger.com?!?!?!?!

2GB xfer would only get my newest blog through a couple days.

So, it's not a webtoy. It's more of an idiotToy. As Kramer would say, SELL, SELL, SELL.

Dandelife

2006-09-14T00:23:00.000-04:00

Dandelife is a neat timeline creator for your life. Jason actually introduced me to this, and it's pretty neat. Neat enough for me to put the major highlights of my life. But since then, I've never visited again.

They should partner with the major blog publishers. On their own, they don't offer much.

Dana's Dandelife
Jason's Dandelife

An App A Day

2006-09-11T22:36:00.000-04:00

Soon I'll be launching a new idea of mine... Destroying my personal life by writing an application everyday for 30 days. Why? I don't friggin know! Check it out: http://www.AnAppADay.com!

PLEASE send in your application ideas!

Toys and Chats

2006-09-09T06:39:00.000-04:00

My goodness, it's been forever. Sorry I've slacked off so much! Jason has been pulling weight with his fancy screenshots and junk posts. Thanks Jason! I'm so glad I can make seating charts now! Whew!

Here's an addictive little game, like the sand game but with duckies!
http://www.dan-ball.jp/javagame/mc/
I wish they had simple games like this for my pocket pc. Countless meetings could be fun if I had something like this to play with - while pretending to be reading e-mail.

Now onto a more productive tool: Chat rooms.

On my way back from Houston yesterday I had a good discussion about how chat rooms need to be brought back. Internally in my company we have a nice persistent chat room with feature such as emailing, color coded text, links, screenshots, etc... It's nice - and very useful.
Campfire is trying to show all businesses the benefit of such software by providing it as a free service. It's a great ajax interface - and something I'll be looking very carefully at in the coming months.
http://www.campfirenow.com

A Very Nice Property Search Site (propsmart)

2006-09-07T07:55:00.000-04:00

Here is a very nice property search site that mashes up all kinds of things in true web2.0 fashion.

Very fast and easy to use - It could use some work on the interface in my opinion, but part of its charm may be its simplicity. This could very well be the Google of Real Estate. Who knows, lots of players out there nowadays are doing everything they can to tempt Google into thinking that they are the next likely acquisition target.

http://www.propsmart.com/

Find Web2.0 Sites by their slick logos

2006-09-05T21:48:00.000-04:00

Here is a great way to discover new properties in the web2.0 space. We know that most of the excitement and interest around a new web2.0 player is their name and identity, often represented by a slick log and the 'beta' swag across the corner of the page/logo.

Find something cool by clicking on your favorite logo. Check it out here at one of my favorite blogs, BuzzShout.

A True Virtual Workforce?

2006-09-05T21:15:00.000-04:00

Not sure I would call this web2.0, but it does have some intersting qualities that make it interesting.....

It is called oDesk. Here, developers can post their skills and associated rates and employers looking for some good old fashioned staff augmentation can hire them for small or large jobs.

The employers can actually hire, manage and pay their remote workers all from this site. As a manager you can watch the progress of your developers in daily journals and even see their code. While searching for candidates you can view their detailed resume/experience and even a rating of them based on previous oDesk projects. Locations of the developers range from the obvious Asian countries, but also from Russia, Ukraine, etc. I can't help but believe that any large global consulting company should have a platform like this to manage their remote workers by...

The First Web-Based Call Center

2006-09-05T20:44:00.000-04:00

Wow - in my nightly perusing of web2.0 toys/sites/gadgets I came across this little dandy. A true web-based call center offering that rides on the incredibly popular Skype platform.

The site is called Sky-Click and it is worth checking out. The web demo is a good way to understand what they aim to do with this tool. As more and more of us are becoming Skype users I can forsee this being a link that will soon dominate customer oriented websites.

Comparing and Contrasting the Web Photo Sharing Sites

2006-09-05T20:32:00.000-04:00

This site has done a wonderful job of comparing the top web photosharing services out there.

The story points out that the only reason Photobucket rates so high in terms of usage is because it is the top image hosting sites for MySpace pages.

Our favorites Picasa, Shutterfly and Flickr don't do so bad....

A Full Virtual Office Suite

2006-09-04T16:00:00.000-04:00

There are many players in the web-enabled/based office suites. In fact, Google is in the action with a strategy so fierce Microsoft was forced to venture into the "Live" space as well.

Zoho has a nice offering and even recently introduced CRM and Project Management/Time Tracking to their suite.

Create a Web Storefront

2006-09-03T22:40:00.000-04:00

Ok, this is kinda neat. If you have ever wanted to create your own online store without all of the hassle and want to avoid the % that eBay or similar auction sites will take, check it out.

It is called shopify and it is built on Ruby on Rails, that great web2.0 programming platform.

Great Hurricane History Tool

2006-09-02T13:21:00.000-04:00

Wow - this is very nice. A page that shows you all the hurricanes from the past century. All of their paths, strength, etc.

Click Here

Hilarious Sign Generators

2006-09-02T08:10:00.000-04:00

This is so hard to describe...Church Signs, Official Seals, Concert Tickets, Cassette Tape, Records, etc. You can put your own words on them and make them say some funny stuff.

http://www.says-it.com/

Weather and Google Maps Mashups

2006-09-02T07:42:00.000-04:00

Check out the weather radar on top of Google Maps. This is an early version and I could actually see Weather.com or Google actually take this to the next level.

The Find Address feature, which I was excited about (because how cool would it be to see the actual clouds on radar that are above your house at that very moment), didn't work well at all. In fact, I never got it to work.

http://itsweather.com/

This site has gotten it down a little bit better and integrates webcams.
http://www.weatherbonk.com

A video mashup service

2006-09-02T07:38:00.000-04:00

This is a very innovative little toy that compiles all the most creative videos found on Google Video, YouTube and other video sharing sites...

I love the interface - very fast and video quality is excellent.

http://www.neave.tv/

Google and Apple Getting Cozy

2006-08-30T08:10:00.000-04:00

Dr. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, was elected to Apple’s board of directors at their meeting today.

Now it gets interesting....might this suggest an even bigger Google/Apple vs. Microsoft battle ahead??

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/aug/29bod.html

Guess the Google

2006-08-29T00:02:00.000-04:00

What a neat game. You're shown a collage of images from a Google image search, and you have to guess the search term. My best was a 200 or so after 2 games.
Check it out here!

Investing in Web2.0???

2006-08-28T22:04:00.000-04:00

I just read a post (similar to many from other "highbrow" publishers) about whether or not web2.0 is really all it is cracked up to be from an investment perspective.

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2006/08/21/ebay-the-web2-0-killing-fields/

What I think has been completely neglected is exactly is something they even quote in their own stories....how "cool" the technologies within this movement called web2.0 really are. This is the very essence of what its all about. The new technologies have provide the tools for us to actually create something new and useful in a relatively cheap/easy way. Most (yes, Most) of the toys and gadgets that people create have no real use at all, other than to get people to play around with it and think of how to build on the idea. THIS IS THE WHOLE POINT!

I would imagine that most of the guys cranking out this stuff aren't internally motivated solely by the greenbacks (I am talking when you really dig into why they are doing what they are doing). They are doing it because they love making things and sharing them with the world. Being the first guy to think about how to mash up A with B. Being the first one to think about how the freely available API/web service from company A could actually help people do something else.

I feel like we are in a sort of Renaissance of sorts. Power to the people. Power to the companies that give that power to the people for these are the ones that will own tomorrow.

In case you are interested....here are some great principles or patterns for what web2.0 is:
http://ajaxian.com/archives/web-20-patterns

XBOX 360 + 20 games for $159.00

2006-08-28T20:16:00.000-04:00

OK, so it's far from a webtoy, but this just couldn't go unnoticed. Some online retailer in Indonesia is selling loaded XBOX 360s for $159.00.

I figured it was a typo worth noting - and was planning on blogging it and bringing the site to it's knees with orders (digg effect anyone?). However, upon seeing how nasty this scam is, I became a little hesitant. Surely no one is stupid enough to fall for this!

Upon attempting checkout, the retailer requires a $800 minimum. OK, so I up the quantity to 6 x XBOX 360s totaling $954.00. I figured worse case scenario I go into a couple month battle with my credit card company, best case scenario my wife boots me to the couch for a week with my 6 XBOXs and 120 games. Probably where I'd want to be anyway....

After updating the quantity to meet the criteria, the site tells me to pick a payment method but only one method is available - "Wire Transfer - For secure reason we will email you payment details directly through our payment department. "

Uh, OK, how about NO. Anyone who wires money to this company is a moron.

So here's the link for you to check out:
XBOX 360 at Rosofstore Inc.

They have lots of other products too, but take note, I DO NOT SUGGEST ANYONE ACTUALLY ORDER FROM THIS STORE. Let it instead be a clear example of a scam. Maybe the digg effect can crash their site for being dumbasses anyway.

Microsoft Live WIFI Hotspot Locator

2006-08-28T17:47:00.000-04:00

OK - this is actually a nice little tool in this world where global free WIFI is not available yet. We all know it is just a matter of time when bandwidth is free.

Here is another blog post about it:
http://momb.socio-kybernetics.net/beta/windows-live-hotspot-locator

Here is the direct link:
http://hotspot.live.com/

Enjoy!

Geotagging in Flickr just introduced

2006-08-28T17:34:00.000-04:00

Now you can tag the exact the location where you took your photos with Flickr's just introduced "geotagging" feature.

Pretty slick, but uploading and managing your photos on these sites is starting to take too much effort. In order to really take full advantage of all of these features you have to spend some serious time tagging your photos with titles, tags, and geotags. Who has time for that?

At some point, someone will include a GPS locator in a camera. Wherever you are at the exact moment you take the shot will get coded to the picture. Now, that would make geotagging very slick.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/08/28/flickr-to-launch-geo-tagging-today/

How To Videos

2006-08-27T20:58:00.000-04:00

Did you ever want to know how something was done, but HATE to read some step by step instructions because you're a visual person? Yea, me too.

Here is a nice site kinda like a How-To Youtube.

http://www.videojug.com

I am scared to see what video Dana uploads....

Fastest T-shirt fold in the West

2006-08-27T20:55:00.000-04:00

Ok, Dana...this is not really a web toy, BUT....it is cool and I tried it.....it worked, 1st time....

http://fold-your-shirt.com/

Watch the video, you won't believe how fast the guy does it...

Flash Games Galore

2006-08-27T20:45:00.000-04:00

This site has collected all of the games that ever hit the digg frontpage, and hosted them in one place. Personally, I'm a huge fan of Click, Drag, Type.

Check out the whole site here!
http://www.games1.org

When it comes to defining "WebToys", I think this does a pretty damn good job.

Search for Schools

2006-08-27T20:03:00.000-04:00

If you're a parent and have questions about the various schools in your area (or perhaps an area you are moving to) check out this great site.

http://www.easyschoolsearch.com/

Type in your zip code and see all the nearby schools. Click on the school and get all kinds of excellent stats. Like, did you ever wonder what the student:teacher ratio was? Or, the number of kids in the 1st grade. Well, now you've found the place with all of the answers.

Update: One of our readers wanted to point out another site (although not a true web2.0 site) http://www.greatschools.net/ which has some excellent detailed information.

Workout Tracker

2006-08-27T18:45:00.000-04:00

OK, this is a fantastic example of a web2.0 site that actually serves a wonderful purpose...to get me off my lazy ass!

This site tracks your progress on your workout plan and even allows your "motivators" to keep you honest. I just signed up, but will post back a comment after I use it for a week or so.

Here it is:
http://www.traineo.com/

The Standards (if you ain't got these, you ain't got nothin!)

2006-08-27T18:23:00.000-04:00

These are some standard web2.0 superstars. These are the sites/tools/toys that everyone must have.

Here they are:
www.skype.com
www.flickr.com

Find New Music

2006-08-27T18:19:00.000-04:00

Did you ever want a way to find new musical artists/groups similar to those you love? For instance, put in R.E.M. (my fave) and find a constant stream of legit groups that sound similar to them. Someone has taken the time to mark the various components of what R.E.M. sound like they do and matches that up with artists with similar components. OK, it sounds nuts, but it really works.

The interface is pretty - the sound quality is impeccable.

Check it out:

http://www.pandora.com/

Napoleon Dynamite and Google Maps Mashup

2006-08-27T11:16:00.000-04:00

This is great....someone took all the sweet spots that our friend Napoleon Dynamite pranced about in our favorite movie of all time, and placed them on a google map...Now, this is a great excuse for a mashup.

http://www.dynamitemap.com/

Where do I find them all?

2006-08-27T11:09:00.000-04:00

Other blogs of course...

I could spend hours searching for cool stuff and sending it out. It's almost more fun to find them and let others know about them, than it is to use them myself.

Here are some of the places I go to find the cool stuff:

http://digg.com/
http://techmeme.com/
http://engadget.com
http://www.originalsignal.com/
http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/

Some various blogging tools:
Embed webpage pics in your blog: http://www.webshotspro.com/

Slick Hurricane Tracker

2006-08-27T10:30:00.000-04:00

Being a Tampa boy, I am, of course, interested in the Hurricane season..

Kudo's to Tampa Bay Online (www.tbo.com) for a great new Hurricane tracker tool.

Check it out here:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/specials/interactives/hurricanetracker05/index.html?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME

Hullo premieres a cool web call forwarding tool

2006-08-27T10:23:00.000-04:00

Ever wanted to have your instant messaging pings to "find you?" That's right. If one of your friends pings you, but you've stepped away you can have this service go down your ranked contact #s and actually call you.

I am not sure that all of the kinks are worked out yet, but its a cool idea nonetheless.

Check it out:
http://www.hullo.com/

My first Post

2006-08-27T10:18:00.000-04:00

This is the first post to this new blog about all the cool web toys that I come across. Hours and hours of fun to come.....watch here for more.

Technorati Profile

2006-08-27T09:00:00.000-04:00

Technorati Profile