I like to keep track of stuff – notes I take during a meeting, ideas that come up at odd times and get thrown onto a post-it note, a cool website I run across, powerful images I could use for blog posts, interesting videos or a important emails. Historically I haven’t had much of a system for being able to track all of that stuff…but I think I may now have an answer that could really work!
I stumbled onto Evernote over a year ago and I was intrigued by the possibilities, but I wasn’t sure how practical or helpful it would be. At the time I had an older Palm OS phone that didn’t let me do much of anything and I was primarily just using one computer in my office. Fast forward to now – I’ve got an Android phone, I’m using a laptop and a desktop for different things and I need access to all of my stuff from all of those places.
Do you ever get that feeling that you’re just beaten down…that it’s too hot and nothing really matters? There are times (especially after you make the mistake of watching the news) when it seems there’s nothing out there but bad things, people struggling and an endless parade of gray.
Well it’s time to perk up because I’ve got 3 things to inspire you:
Bookbinding
Shoes
Unicorns!
It may not sound like an inspirational list, but keep reading and I think you’ll find something to get you moving!
I continue to be surprised with some of the cool applications and sites that pop up… a lot of free stuff and generally pretty innovative! From a business standpoint, free may not be the best way to go, but I think the developers are in a tough situation. If you want people to find your stuff, try it out and talk about it, your best bet is to make it free and get it out to a lot of people.
So that’s what I’m doing here – talking about 3 interesting, useful and free sites that you should check out today.
The continuing evolution of the internet has changed a lot of things – how people communicate (Facebook, Twitter), how they establish expertise (blogging, answering questions, wikis) and how business is done (online presence is mandatory now).
What’s really exciting is that social media and the internet has generated a lot of cool new businesses and business models. Business models like Threadless – a t-shirt design studio that’s completely driven by fans and users in terms of what t-shirts get made and sold (and they’re selling millions of them!). Or Woot! – a deceptively simple site that sells 1 product per day until it sells out or runs out of time. It’s popular enough to have turned into a phenomenon on it’s own.
The latest fresh business model that I’ve seen is Groupon (a combination of Group and Coupon). They just made it to Kansas City earlier this week.
It’s a Friday afternoon and I thought I would share 3 fun and interesting, but totally unrelated things. The internet is an amazing resource…what is it not capable of?
Item #1 – Accidental Innovation
Most of the time you think about inventors laboring away in the lab, spending years coming up with great ideas and products. However for a lot of products, the innovation actually comes about accidentally.
You may have heard the story about Post-its as an accidental creation at 3M, but did you know that Corn Flakes were totally an accident discovered by the Kellogg brothers in the late 1800s?
Or that the x-ray was discovered accidentally when a fluorescent screen unexpectedly started glowing during an unrelated experiment?
The fun folks over at Business Pundit have pulled together an article on popular products that were invented by accident – you can see it here at the unique origins of 25 popular products!
Item #2 – Unbelievable Photos!
I’m a big fan of photography and the amazing things you can do with Photoshop, but it’s even more amazing to find untouched photos that are unbelievable.
The WebUrbanist has come up with 15 incredible images that look altered but aren’t. As an example, the picture above is actually a reflection on a beach, not a body of water. Cool stuff – check it out.
Item #3 – Google Wave is coming!
Finally, if you haven’t heard about Google Wave, you’re hearing about it now and you’ll be hearing a lot more in the next couple of months. The quick explanation of Google Wave is that it’s a new platform / technology / application that represents what email would be if it were invented today instead of 40 years ago – bringing in all of the real-time collaboration and sharing that people are using in Social Media applications everywhere else.
Confused? Me too – but this video might help you make sense of it (and it’s only 2 minutes long!).
I can see a ton of uses for something like this and with Google’s backing you know it’s going to get a lot of exposure. Stay tuned, it will be interesting.
If you’ve seen some fun stuff lately, share it in the comments below – I’d love to see it.
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You may have heard the story about Post-its as an accidental creation at 3M, but did you know that Corn Flakes were totally an accident discovered by the Kellogg brothers in the late 1800s?
photo by