Archive for the ‘Cool websites’ Category:
Jinx profits from social networking/marketing
Many companies have been trying to capitalize on Web 2.0 concepts such as social networking but few have had much success as of yet with this fairly new idea in online marketing. The problem, I believe, is that many companies have trouble relating to their target demographic and providing them with the type of websites they really want. Jinx.com, an online clothing retailer, is one of the few companies that I think is on the right track.
Jinx targets mainly gamers and tech geeks with their humorous t-shirts, an audience that makes up one of the largest user-bases of most social networking sites. Jinx decided to capitalize on this savvy audience by implementing points.
Jinx Gold is earned whenever you purchase something from the site, level up after getting enough Jinx EXP, or win one of their frequent contests. It can then be used to purchase products from the site. Jinx EXP is earned by posting comments/reviews on the products, participating in polls, uploading photos, taking quizzes, and interacting with the site in various other ways. The Gold and EXP concepts are taken from popular role-playing games, which is fitting as many of the t-shirts on Jinx are designed specifically for gamers.
Giving loyalty points and incentives to your customers isn’t a new concept. Companies such as Coca-Cola were doing it long before the web came along. What’s surprising is that so few online retailers are taking advantage of this great online marketing tool.
Personally, I find myself visiting the Jinx website at least once a week now so I can increase my EXP for free by answering their weekly poll and quiz, as well as leaving the occasional comment. For some reason the geek in me has a strong need to level up past my current status of Lvl 2 Minion. If only it was this fun to hang out on Amazon, Ebay or Overstock.com.
Strip Generator lets you make your own comic strips
For those with a good sense of humor but no artistic ability, Strip Generator offers a free and easy way to create your own comic strips using clip art. The site isn’t the only comic strip generator on the web, but it is one of the easier to use and more popular sites out there. Users can even create their own Strip Blog, which combines the art of creating comic strips with blogging.
Affordable custom poster frames do exist
I collect movie posters, lithographs, and art prints related to comic books and popular science fiction shows. The most expensive part of this hobby isn’t the posters and prints themselves but the custom frames needed for the odd sizes of many of these posters. If you go to a framing shop and ask for a 27×40.5 aluminum frame with UV coated plexiglass and acid-free backing, you’ll probably be quoted something in the neighborhood of $200. Like many such expenses, however, there are cheaper alternatives to be found on the web.
myYearbook
Social networking is all the rage these days and one of the latest and greatest sites on the national scene is myYearbook.com, which is sort of a combination of the viral widgets of Facebook and style and features of Myspace. The network already has over five million members and is growing rapidly.
On their “Our Story” page, they claim the site was created by a couple high school kids, which I find hard to believe, considering the venture capital funding and national advertising contracts the site had already attained at its inception.No, this was a website created by corporate America with the sole purpose of APPEARING to be a hip site created by and for kids. Their claims are about as believable as boy bands writing their own songs.
Despite this, they are situated nicely to become the new cool hangout now that even parents and grandparents are hanging out on Myspace by the tens of thousands. After all, once everyone knows about a site like Myspace, it’s no longer cool, so the in-crowd has to find somewhere else to hang out. Whether or not myYearbook is that new destination has yet to be determined.
Dinosaur wows the techies at CeBIT
Mar. 5 – Pleo the robotic dinosaur proves to be a star attraction at the CeBIT annual computer expo in Germany.
Pleo was designed by its creators, the Californian company Ugobe, to emulate the appearance and behaviour of a week-old infant Camerasaurus.
It’s being marketed as a household pet.
Helen Long reports.
Stuff On My Cat
Stuff On My Cat is one of those silly, time wasting sites that I visit maybe once a year when I remember it exists. It’s not quite as funny as its sister site, I Can Has Cheezeburger, but it’s worth the occasional visit. The photos on the site feature, as you may have guessed, cats with stuff on them. If you’re wondering why this is funny, well, you’re either the type of person who gets it or you’re not.
Good Search – Donate to charity by doing free Internet searches
We all use search engines every day to make our lives a little easier, but Good Search allows us to improve the lives of others just by searching the Internet. Every time you do a search on Good Search, they donate a penny to the charity of your choice. This can be any legit charity in existence, so if your local charity of choice hasn’t signed up at Good Search yet, be sure to tell them about the site.
Good Search is powered by Yahoo, so it’s no different than searching at Yahoo.com, other than the fact that you’re helping out a charity in the process. It doesn’t take many searches to make a difference either. If you get 100 people to do 2 searches a day, you’d make an estimated $730 a year for your charity. With a thousand people doing 2 searches a day, you’d make $7,300 and with 10,000 people you’d make $73,000. As you can see, Good Search can benefit both large and small organizations.
Good Search also offers a site called Good Shop, which has links to several major Internet retailers. If you make a purchase at these retailers, they’ll donate a portion of your purchase price to your charity of choice.
So bookmark Good Search and start donating to your charity by doing searches today, and don’t forget to tell your local charities about the site as well. If you have any questions about the site, you can check out their FAQ by clicking here.
Where to find downloadable movie trailers
There are thousands of sites on the web that offer movie trailers, but sometimes you need to download a trailer for some reason. Either you want to post it to another website or you want a copy to send to a friend. Finding download links for trailers is never an easy task (unless you can download .flv files, which I’ll talk about in another post), but I stumbled across a site yesterday called Movie List that makes it fairly simple.
Movie List has direct download links to trailers of upcoming films, current releases, and popular movies of the last couple years. If there’s a trailer you’re searching for, chances are you’ll be able to find it at Movie List. This site has made my own life easier, so I thought I’d pass it along.
Are you paying too much for video games?
I’ve always been a bargain hunter, as my parents used to drag me to garage sales and flea markets on a regular basis when I was younger, instilling in me a sense of frugality. I’m constantly snooping around clearance bins, checking out dollar stores, clipping coupons, and doing whatever else I can to save a buck or two. Thus, it should be no surprise to anyone that I don’t like to pay full price for video games (or anything else for that matter).
Etree.org – Free legal concert recordings
The Etree community was formed in the summer of 1998 for the online trading of live concert CD-R’s. These CDs are traded in a high-quality, lossless digital format which can be burned to CD or listened to on certain media players. While the site was originally formed by Phish fans, it has grown to include concert recordings from hundreds of popular bands such as The Grateful Dead, 311, John Mayer, Ben Folds, Blues Traveler, Dave Matthews Band, Primus, Queens of the Stone Age, and The Smashing Pumpkins (just to name a few).
