You know the best thing about hunting for undiscovered gems on the intrawebs? Someone has already gone and made a list for you. In this case PC Mag came up with a list of a 100 sites, and then we went through the lot and shortlisted some of the most interesting. The World Wide Web is a thing of joy forever. Children, go fourth now and discover it for yourselves.
Expo TV -
www.expotv.com
A combination of shiny gadgets, unadulterated user reviews and M-O-N-E-Y make this site irresistible. Filled with videotaped opinions and reviews about the latest toys, from phones to new cars, ExpoTV's catalogue of video clips offers unique insights on products you may not have considered reading reviews of, such as yoga mats or highlighter pens.
And if you make a video review of a product and submit it, ExpoTV may pay you $10 if they run it, with an extra penny each time it's played on the site (all via PayPal). Your video review may even make it on ExpoTV's video-on-demand shopping spots on cable TV.
Scrap Blog -
www.scrapblog.com
Want to do more with your pics than just dump them online? Scrapblog lets you grab your photos from Flickr, MySpace, Facebook, Picasa, and many more photo sites, and use them to construct cool (and free) multimedia scrapbooks. You can also use video in your scrapbooks, and the interface is very easy to use.
Bleacher Report - www.bleacherreport.com
BleacherReport gives fans a chance to become sports journalists via this "open-source sports network." It's a vast site, full of sports news, facts, and, above all, opinions. From columns (like "The Top Ten Most Unwearable Jerseys") to demonstrations of fan fickleness ("Brett Favre: We Want to Quit You"), there's a ton of content here covering everything from the big leagues to sports that we Yanks don't get but everyone else in the world does, like soccer and cricket. That's right, we said cricket.
Daily Lit -
www.dailylit.com
You can never again use the excuse that you're in front of the computer too much to read a good book. DailyLit solves that problem. Visit the site, sign up, find a book you want to read, and start receiving the tome in easily readable chunks every day, every other day, or just once a week via e-mail or RSS. The majority of the titles are free, public-domain classics (think Dickens and Twain), but there's also several new books both free and paid. It might take a few years to read War and Peace this way, since it's delivered in 675 discrete parts, but at least you're reading.
Design*Sponge - www.designspongeonline.com
There are lots and lots of design and DIY blogs out there, many of which are locked in an arms race to see who can find the most outlandish projects (like an antique chair reuphol-stered with thousand-dollar bills or a shower curtain made of clouds and rainbows). Design*Sponge sets itself apart in this crowded space with the practicality and doability of the projects it offers readers.
As in: You and I could actually do most of this stuff and make it look great.
Wolfgang's Vault - www.wolfgangsvault.com
Click on the "Concert Vault" on Wolfgang's Vault's home page to be granted free access to musical paradise. The Concert Vault has vintage recordings of thousands of live shows by rock legends like Clapton, Zeppelin, Hendrix, The Who, The Rolling Stones, and many, many more.
All the recordings are free to stream, and these aren't crappy bootlegs; they're master recordings from Bill Graham's archives and other reputable catalogs.
Earth Album -
www.earthalbum.com
This isn't the first mash-up of Flickr and Google Maps, but we think it's one of the best.
Earth Album fills your browser with a full map of the world, courtesy of Google.
Click on any location, and geotagged photos appear in a strip on the top of the interface.
Click one to see it larger and get a description from the photographer.
Naturally, you can zoom in on the map to get more specific choices. Big cities and tourist destinations have the most photos associated with them, but click around to get a variety. You can even search for photos at specific addresses.
Web Designer Wall - www.webdesignerwall.com
It's a touch ironic, to be sure, but it's rare to find a Web design site that's actually, you know, well designed. Featuring tips, tricks, and tutorials, Web Designer Wall is chock-full of helpful tips for amateur and professional designers alike-and it's pretty nice to look at, to boot.
someecards -
www.someecards.com
Given our experience with greeting cards, both e- and real-world, it comes as quite a shock that one of the funniest sites on the Web is an e-card service.
Browsing through the site's enormous collection of hilarious e-cards was enough to make us wish we had friends to send them to.
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