Monday, August 22, 2011

Time's 50 Best Websites 2011 - CBS

Recently, Time announced the 50 Best Websites of 2011.

Here is the TV segment from CBS Early Show and my faves from the bunch.



AirBnB (Shopping and Travel) 
Want to travel but hesitant to fork over the money for a hotel? AirBnB can be an amazing resource.  It connects people with available places to those looking for a place to stay. It works off the same approach as Craigslist but has a less creepy vibe.  Airbnb offers stays in over 16,000 cities, 186 countries and has booked over 2 million night stays. 

While the average stay is in an apartment or home, some of the most unique destinations from an island in Fiji to a mushroom hut in California are available.  Guests and hosts can leave reviews for each other that can be viewed by others and offer transparency.  As always be careful … Airbnb did come under heat a few weeks ago when someone returned to a trashed house. 



Dear Photograph (Family/Photo)
The premise here is simple but can be incredibly remarkable.
“Take a picture of a picture from the past in the present. “
Allows us to appreciate that feeling on having an old school photograph in hand and true nostalgia.

image courtesy of dearphotograph.com
Turntable.fm (Music)
This is a site that’s getting a lot of traction these days.  It’s a social way to listen to music.  It's not yet open to the public yet but if you have a Facebook friend that’s a member (and odds are you do) you can get in as well.  Basically, you choose the type of music chat room you want to join and everyone can take their turn at DJ, songs are voted on and earn DJs points.  I included this one because of the popularity and amusement of many of my friends.  I honestly don't understand who wants to listen to other people's music on the reg or wants to wait for their song in the queue to play?



Kickstarter (Financial and Productivity)
Have an amazing idea or project but cant raise the financing?  Turn to Kickstarter.  Kickstarter is an outlet for creative types to raise money with micro financing from others.  People like you and me can donate $1 to hundreds or thousands of dollars to fund a project in the world of art, music, photographer food, and beyond.  The artist maintains 100% control over their work and donors get a “creative thank you” decided by the artist.


Creative types have raised money from anything to creating a music album to getting their food trucks off the ground to getting funding for a short film. 



MapMyRun (Health and Fitness)
MapMyRun is a great way to track and store your daily running routes or just find some new routes within the city you live in or may be visiting.  It currently has over 4.3 million fitness enthusiasts that also can access their other sites for biking, hiking and walking. 
It works great as an app too.  Your smartphone GPS can create live tracking of your runs, elevation, calories burned and more.  Plus, you can activate keeping track of others too in real-time.

For the full list of all 50 websites chosen by Time.com click here.

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