5 Cool Websites Still In Beta

It must be very daunting launching a new web-service post dot com bubble burst. Financial considerations aside, it often feels like everything worthwhile has already been done. The sites on the following list prove that assumption wrong, as each offers something new and fun to play around with (for free!). Now, keep in mind that these websites, while fully functional, are still in development. It's not uncommon to encounter glitches and just because they're free now doesn't mean they will always be. So what are you waiting for? Go check out the top 5 cool beta websites:


5. Finetune

Finetune is a very cool site that allows you to choose from 2+ million songs to create custom playlists. You can play these playlists from any computer with internet access. There's nothing to download (the webplayer is Flash-based), the songs are CD-quality, and it's free! The only downside is you can't choose the order in which the songs in your playlist appear, but you can skip curently playing songs and make as many playlists as you want. Finetune calls it the evolution of the mixed tape, but I like to think of it as an internet iPod stuck on shuffle. The best advice is to use the main website to setup your playlists, then play them using the Wii-version for an ultra sleek and simple ad-free interface.
Website: www.finetune.com
Wii Version: www.finetune.com/wii


4. Cha Cha

Cha Cha allows you to submit any question, and have a real person go out on the web and find the answer. You can submit a question via their website, SMS or even a their toll free number (1-800-2chacha). The answer is then sent as a text message back to your mobile phone. The service is free, and anyone can also join the team and be paid to answer other people's submitted questions. This obviously means there is a wide variety in the quality of answers, but if you've ever tried to use Google on your cell phone when out and about, you know the potential convenience of being able to call someone else and have them do the search.
Website: www.chacha.com


3. Ask 500 People

Ever wanted to know if people could pick a superpower what they would choose? Or what people's favorite kind of cheese is? These silly questions (and some serious ones) can be answered by ask 500 people. Just like it sounds, anyone can post a question, where it will be queued up and asked to 500 people on the website and "hundreds websites across the internet". Now, the results aren't exactly scientific, and because the service is in beta it's more like you'll ask 200 people. Nevertheless, this is a very cool (and once again free) service that can be a fun way ask questions and get your opinions out there.
Website: www.ask500people.com


2. Amazon Mechanical Turk

A pioneer of "crowdsourcing", Amazon Mechanical Turk takes those tasks which computers aren't really good at yet (ie. telling if two products are duplicates, or writing short product reviews) and connects them to internet users who are willing to complete them for money. Now, most tasks (called HITs for Human Intelligence Task) only pay a few pennies each, but most also don't take more than a minute to complete. Volume processing is the key to making any significant money while "turking". Some people have made hundreds of dollars, while others just find it too boring. Nevertheless, if you can find tasks you like, Mechanical Turk is one of the few legit ways to reliably make money on the internet.
Website: www.mturk.com


1. Tagcow

If you've downloaded all your pictures off your digital camera, you probably have a lot of filenames with titles like "dcm_10010" or other equally as descriptive titles. The solution is to upload photos to tagcow (or interface with its flicker widget), where the photos are magically processed and tags are added like "man", "child eating spaghetti", "disneyland", or whatever else appears in the photo. It isn't really magic, as the work is done by paid users on Amazon Mechanical Turk (see #4). The service is free to you though, and there's no limit to how many photos can be uploaded. Just keep in mind, anyone can sign up for Mechanical Turk, so make sure you're okay with strangers seeing your pictures. We wouldn't want that embarrassing photo of you at last years Christmas party slipping out now would we?
Website: www.tagcow.com

5 Media Programs We Love To Hate

We use a lot of different programs to view a lot of different types of media files. Some programs do a fairly good job of delivering information. Unfortunately, a lot of programs do nasty things like spy on you, hijack your system or just plain bug you. Below is a list of top 5 media programs we all use that you can only love to hate:


Adobe Flash

Ok, Flash isn’t all bad. It has been a great platform for amateur animators, and it certainly is a popular way to deliver streaming video cross-platform. Flash becomes a problem when entire websites are created using it. In the age of Web 2.0 no one likes being forced to watch opening animations or waiting for elaborate menus to glide into place before being allowed to click on them. Especially problematic is the inability to right click anything which takes away the ability to download most webpage elements. Flash is unsupported on most mobile devices as well. Hey web designers, do us a favor and leave Flash for goofy videos on Youtube and make your webpages functional.


Quicktime (For Windows)

Quicktime for Mac OSX does a fairly decent job. It integrates into the OS and plays most media files with little effort (especially when outfitted with flip4mac). Quicktime for Windows is a different story. It’s nearly impossible to find a way to install it without also being forced to also take iTunes. Inattention during the install process allows the program to hijack almost all media types from other programs. Once it’s installed it sets up shop in the system tray even when not running. The program itself is slow and lacking in features. It’s no wonder PC users don’t want to switch to Macs. And by the way Apple, you can quit asking us EVERYTIME we load the program, we never want to upgrade to Quicktime Pro.


Adobe Acrobat Reader

It’s somewhat ironic that the creators of the PDF file format also make the worst viewing software. Acrobat Reader is painfully slow to load. Nothing sucks more than watching your system grind to a halt as you realize that link you just clicked on is a 2 page PDF. Adobe tried to fix this by loading a part of the program into memory on windows startup, but now it just means you can have Adobe Reader around slowing down your computer all the time! Once loaded, the reader nags you to update it nearly every time it loads. It also seems strange that a program simply designed to view PDFs needs to constantly phone home. Geesh.


RealPlayer

Good luck trying to find the free version for download. Once you do find it, RealPlayer will automatically load at startup and randomly pop ads up through its “message center”. Both can be disabled but they always seem to turn back on somehow (kind of like adware!). Like Quicktime, failure to pay attention during the install results in RealPlayer hijacking the playback of all your media files. To top it all off, RealPlayer seems to be more concerned with including a webrowser, burning DVD’s and selling its monthly subscription than actually playing media files.


Microsoft Internet Explorer

It does it’s job well enough, but even with the touted upgrades, you just can’t help getting the feeling that using Internet Explorer is like putting a big sign on your PC saying “I’m a Giant Security Exploit! Attack Me!”. Of course IE is a big target because so many people use it. Unfortunately, those who want to break away from Internet Explorer and use better alternatives are all to often forced back into using it on websites that are only designed to be viewable using IE (www.windowsupdate.com being a prime example). Its a vicious circle: People can't break way from IE because websites require it, websites require it because people keep using it.