Space in the city

Here I am going to list few shopping website that don't make sense at any level other than being well packaged and meeting some VC's (Venture Capitalist - as my good friend would call it poor S@#K$r) checklist for a Shopping web 2.0 site. Have we reached a web 2.0 bubble? These website would validate it - excess supply of money chasing few good ideas and irrational exuberance (anything social networking gets money). Here is my WhatTheHell list 1) Stylefeeder 2) This Next 3) Yub 4) Crowd Storm (Winner of WhatTheHell Award)

Pandora is a site for music lover. You enter songs 0r artists that you like and it streams out similar songs to you. Is a great way to find new music for free Also read about the bill to save Internet Radio . Pandora is for US listening due to the licensing restriction. If you are outside use you could use finetune . Finetune is similar to Pandora which allows you to create your own playlist and share it too.

Price optimization software now making it possible to price product based on customers behavior, sales history, competitors' price, product mix and the fact that people are hard-wired to love sales - when we see good deal (mark down), a different part of the brain lights up than with a loss (price rise) Read more about it in this AP article - Software helps some stores decide when the price is right Some results of price-optimization software: Like many national companies, one electronics retailer priced batteries the same all over — until SAP's Khimetrics software showed that consumers in Dallas were generally willing to pay more for batteries than people in Boston. The data revealed another twist: The battery that had the highest "price sensitivity" in Dallas had the lowest price sensitivity in Boston. In other words, while Texans would buy this particular battery only within a narrow price range, Bostonians were far less picky. The store altered its prices accordin...

Whats different about Netvibes? How does it stack up against say a rss reader or my.msn.com or my.yahoo.com? For one Netvibes users will two (2) pages for every account: a private page, where you subscribe to all the content for your personal, everyday use, and a public page, where you can allow others to access your favorite content -- everything that you love on the web. Here is one more thing you will like about it if you have a widescreen monitor it will fill it up end to end plus no annoying google ad or flashy ads. Netvibes is about having web the way you want it. Exactly the way you want it. Delivered to you. So check out it out for yourself: Netvibes Also check out Moby's Netvibe page. To read more about guy behind Netvibes read it article in business 2.0 "Web users feel the 'Vibes' List of similar web services Pageflakes Protopage Google Homepage Start My Yahoo My MSN

Will shopwiki give shopzilla a run for it money? Swiki's got some neat features like b uying and gift guides - to help through the research stage of shopping. As it is a wiki everyone can update it, you can also post videos of products. Also check out the stated web crawling technology ( click here ) Another shopping website trying to break into a niche - stylehive . S tylehive is a collection of all the best products, brands, designers and stores discovered and tagged by t he Hive community. Also heard at Techcrunch Stylehive ... a social bookmarking site that is focused on shopping... believe that there is promise in this space, which includes the just funded Kaboodle , as well as Wists and the upcoming Plum . Why? Because 80% of online shopping is “research” and only 20% is actually “buying”. Stylehive addresses the 80% piece of the market.

Want to know who owns a particular Brand? Find Owner Search allows you to: Find the owner of a brand name Find all the brands owned by an individual or company Find brands in a given area/category. To start your brand search Click here . Find Owner Search can be very helpful for: Advertising agencies to track companies, their brands and competing brands for purposes of gaining new business and/or naming new products and services. Marketing and Media companies to track all the companies and/or Brands in one category. Consumers for quickly learning the address and other brands owned by any company for purposes of buying new products and services, complaining to senior management, or seeking a job at a particular company.

Apple 2Q Profits up by 88% Apple Inc. blew past Wall Street expectations Wednesday, posting quarterly profits that jumped 88 percent, fueled by strong sales of its iPod players and Macintosh computers....( more ) Global Brands Survey/Ranking Google rises to the Top of the BRANDZ ™ 2007 Ranking of the world's most powerful brands with a brand value of $66,434 Million. To read the complete article click here (pdf) Compare it with 2006 BRANDZ 2006 ranking click here Global Brand Survey 2007 -- Click here to hear the podcast Compare it with BusinessWeek brand Scorecard 2006/5-- 2006 Click here 2005 Click here

MSN Money -Zogby customer-service survey. Read more about it click on the article below The Customer Service Hall of Shame How companies were ranked Here's a look at our full results: "Poor" "Fair" "Good" "Excellent" Bottom 10 Sprint Nextel 40% 28% 25% 7% Bank of America 30% 25% 32% 13% Comcast 30% 33% 28% 10% Time Warner Cable 29% 35% 28% 8% AT&T 26% 36% 31% 7% Citibank 24% 34% 35% 8% Wal-Mart 23% 32% 32% 13% Verizon 22% 31% 36% 11% Wells Fargo 21% 27% 38% 14% DirecTV 20% 29% 33% 17% Dishonorable mentions Dell 19% 26% 40% 15% Circuit City 19% 35% 39% 8% Best Buy 14% 31% 42% 13% Home Depot 13% 29% 43% 14% Sears 12% 33% 45% 10% Macy's 10% 30% 47% 13%

World Time by moving your cursor over it Website : QClock Locate the cellphone towers Click on the picture Locate the area covered by a zipcode area of your county and more. check out this mashup website usnaviguide

STEVEN WRIGHT - When The Leaves Blow Away. More of Steven Wright Quotes: 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name. 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot. A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good. On the other hand, you have different fingers. -- Steven Wright I was sad because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet. So I said, "Got any shoes you're not using?" -- Steven Wright My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted. -- Steven Wright Someone sent me a postcard picture of the earth. On the back it said, "Wish you were here." -- Steven Wright Cross country skiing is great if you live in a small country. -- Steven Wright I spilled spot remover on my dog. Now he's gone. -- Steven Wright If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate. -- Steven Wright "Did you sleep well?" "No, I made a couple of mistakes." -- Steven Wright My dental hygienist is c...

And the winner is FlashEarth . Very smooth navigation, enhances microsoft Aerial map really makes MS aerial map look like cool Web2.0 app! What next an mashup app to make msn search work??? FlashEarth lets you view maps from 8 different site, it does not include google earth... Check it out FlashEarth

Paint like Jackson Pollack -- Click here For serious A Cappella competition check out -- The Varsity Vocals International Championship of A Cappella.

Read on PhysOrg.com The most controversial idea in the plan ( NYC Plan 2030 ), from the mayor's Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability , is a proposal to charge motorists for driving into Manhattan below 86th Street on weekdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Trucks would be charged $21 a day and cars would be charged $8, on top of the city's already expensive parking. It is similar to a system that London (Congestion Charge) has used since 2003, and officials there say it has significantly reduced congestion. The scheme applauded by environmentalists and alternative transportation groups , but is politically tricky for New York City because it would have to be enacted by the state Legislature , and many lawmakers from outer boroughs and the suburbs may not support it. Read Full speech hear -- Click here

meebo.com is a website for instant messaging from absolutely anywhere. Whether you’re at home, on campus, at work, or traveling foreign lands, hop over to meebo.com on any computer to access all of your buddies (on AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ and Jabber) and chat with them, no downloads or installs required, for free! meebo launched in September 2005 and received funding from Sequoia Capital in December 2005 and Draper Fisher Jurvetson in January 2007. Today, our users exchange over 80 million instant messages daily. We (the meebo team) are just a fun bunch of people trying to bring IM to the web! Check out their other products Meebo Me Meebo repeater

As per PC Mag FunnyOrDie also features user-generated comedy videos, allowing anyone to upload their clips. But unlike YouTube and other popular user-generated sites, the viewers' ratings for the videos determine their fate—thus the name of the site—with only the highly rated staying on. Those with negative reviews are banished to the "Crypt" section of the site. Sources said FunnyOrDie.com has been in the works for months, following an overture by venture capital firm Sequoia Partners to Creative Artists Agency, which represents Gary Sanchez Prods., the company run by Ferrell and McKay. Sequoia knows a thing or two about successful user-generated website having provided early rounds of funding to YouTube. The company also delivered venture capital for YouTube's parent, Google, as well as Yahoo! PayPal, and Meebo . Sequoia also was one of the first investors in Cisco Systems, Oracle and Apple. Want to watch the Video click on the picture or click here

Interesting article about on Time Mag about Einstein's view on faith. For some people, miracles serve as evidence of God's existence. For Einstein it was the absence of miracles that reflected divine providence. The fact that the world was comprehensible, that it followed laws, was worthy of awe. Also on a related note here is a link to page where you can find out more about Einstein ...was he slow learner as a child?..Did Einstein believe in God? ..Did Einstein think in pictures rather than words?..

New York Times has this interesting article about how companies are mining through travel data to find travel deal. Sifting Data to Uncover Travel Deals sites the following website. Farecast.com airfarewatchdog.com ( to find deals that include companies that don't share data) Flightstats.com (if you wanted to see which flightsare most prone to problems/delays) milemaven.com (best mileage programs) pointmaven.com (earn the most hotel points) update 4/22 read more about at consumerist . Cheaptickets.com sidestep.com

On my way back from work I was listening the radio the other day and I come across an interesting commentary about lying in the workplace . It's a commentary by Lucy Kellaway of the Financial Times and can be heard on marketplace.org . Here are a few things that caught my attention. "Workplaces are hierarchies. That means we kiss up and kick down ...stretching the truth..." Most insightful comment "...the most dangerous people in business are the ones who believe their own lies." very true! A survey by careerbuilder.com concludes that one in five workers lie and Nineteen percent of workers admitted they tell lies at the office at least once a week This article also states the following The most common lies workers say they have told at the office include: I don't know how that happened (20 percent) I have another call to take or I'll call you right back (16 percent) I've been out of town or out sick (10 percent) I like your outfit or you ...

Peter Bjorn and John are a Swedish indie rock band, formed in Stockholm in 1999. The current members are Peter Morén on vocals, guitar, and harmonica; Björn Yttling on vocals, bass and keyboards; and John Eriksson on drums, percussion, and vocals. To date they are best known for the 2006 single "Young Folks". What their music videos