If you are reading this post, we presume you are single and likely nervous about entering the world of online dating. To you we say: Go for it!
Think of it this way: If you were looking for a job, you’d conduct at least part of your search online, no? When shopping for a creative gift, checking out tomorrow’s weather forecast or looking for a used car you’d search online. So why not when looking for a boyfriend or girlfriend?
Meeting mates online is not going mainstream. It is mainstream. Of all the people who got married in the United States in the last year, 1 out of every 6 met online. More than twice as many marriages occurred between people who met on an online dating site than between those who met in bars, clubs and social events combined. And such online dating success spans across demographic groups—targeted niche sites like eHarmony senior online dating have hugely helped singles get back into the dating game later in life.
So, go for it! And start by choosing the online dating site that will work best for you.
There are literally thousands of dating websites to choose from. They break down into roughly two groups: general dating websites, those joined by a relatively large and diverse cross section of people, and niche dating websites, geared towards a specific audience.
We’ll deal with nice dating websites in our next post. Here we’ll look at the general websites. Spot Cool Stuff has tried out dozens of them. Below is our description of the ones we like best. Check out the full reviews or, if you are the impatient sort, skip ahead to our conclusions:
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Fans of Spot Cool Stuff’s architecture posts—especially those who wish we’d be able to publish them more frequently—would do well to check out Open Buildings.
The goal of the Open Buildings website: collect as much information as possible about the world’s cool architecture.
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Moments ago, Spot Cool Stuff placed a pre-order at the Quirky online store for a Trek Support Backpack. The waterproof, airport-friendly backpack comes with a form-fitted electronics dock and a 7-hour battery. You charge up the backpack and then can use the dock to charge up to three gadgets at once while on the go.
The Trek Support Backpack is very cool. Or, we should say, it seems to us like it will be very cool. And we aren’t the only ones who think so. Afterall, the Trek Support Backpack is the product of virtual crowdsourcing—it was proposed, vetted, designed, refined and branded by a diverse online community. All the other items sold through Quirky are communally designed too.
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Spot Cool Stuff is fascinated by the ever expanding functionality companies are bringing to Twitter. Some hotels offer concierge services via Twitter. Some take-out restaurants allow customers to place orders via Twitter. And now at least one VoIP company, Jajah, is launching a service that places telephone calls via Twitter.
Here’s how Jajah’s Twitter calling works:
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As the popularity of RSS feeds have grown so have the number of sites aggregating RSS feeds. Spot Cool Stuff’s aggregator of choice is Alltop, a self-described online magazine rack of popular topics.
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We wish there were some sort of Life Tracker equivalent.
Many a bride-to-be—and none too few grooms—have nightmares about the logistics of their upcoming wedding. The invitations, the music, the catering, the flowers, the rehearsal dinner and on and on and on . . . keeping it all organized is tedious and stressful.
To help engaged couples rest easy there’s Wedding Tracker, an online service through which you can not only organize your wedding but to build your own personalized wedding website as well. The service costs $60 (or $25 if you only want the website builder). To see if Wedding Tracker was worth it we tried it out:
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The explosion in the popularity of Twitter has brought with it an explosion in the selection of Twitter-related websites and application. Here’s a rundown of a few of our favorites, with the ones we especially liked are in bold. For this list, we decided to only include websites that were free (though a few involve a download that costs money). We also excluded sites that are in the early phases of beta testing.
Is there a Twitterish site you think should be on this list? Let us know in a comment, below. And, of course, make sure you follow Spot Cool Stuff on your Twitter account . . .
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