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TheReckoner.net – Make The Right Decision

January 12, 2012

Is there such a thing as a “solution” to a moral dilemma? Different people have wildly different convictions, and they think in radically different ways. What someone thinks is fair is completely wrong to others. I’m sure you know as much, you’ve probably failed to come to terms with someone when discussing something that you see as black & white. And then, you felt sort of bad afterwards. “Was he right or was I right?”. While there’s no way to settle that down for good, there’s sites that let you know how most people feel about what you were discussing with that person. This is one of these.

On TheReckoner.net you can post both “Yes/No” questions and binary questions, and have people vote on them. If you get an overwhelmingly positive response to what you post, then that doesn’t mean your point of view is better than the other person’s, but you will at least have the comfort of knowing lots and lots of people think like you.

“Are College Tuition increases a scam?”, “The Glamour and Glitz of Hollywood… Is It Gone?”, “Your NFL team can sign the world’s best QB. The only problem is: he’s a convicted manslaughterer. Do you want them to do it?”… These are just some examples of the kind of questions that people are posting on The Reckoner. As you can see, all kind of questions and dilemmas are allowed. Just sign in with Facebook or Google+, and you’ll be able to add yours to the database.

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YourInsighters.com – Know If Your Idea Is Good Or Not

January 11, 2012

So, after days of thinking you’ve finally got an idea for what you think would be a killer business. It would be great if there were a way to know if that idea would actually work well in the real world without having to spend a single cent, wouldn’t it? There are people who could help you determine that. But they’d do it at a price. And you might not be ready to pay that much. And that’s where sites like this one come in.

YourInsighters.com lets you ask people like you and me what they think about any idea you have had, and benefit from their collective intelligence. Of course, nobody would go blindly by what people he doesn’t even know personally tell him. But it’s something of an indicator all the same. And when 500 people tell you that an idea you have had is terrible, and not a single soul praises it then that must be because there’s indeed something wrong with it.

Registration to YourInsighters.com costs nothing, and you can ask all the questions you want. And then, review them using the provided interface.

YourInsighters.com is a useful resource, although there’s no denying that sites like

GuruStorms come with better features, and are designed more crisply.

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Peerdea.com – Get Feedback From The Community

December 31, 2011

It seems that the community that Peerdea.com aims to generate is just begining. But the site’s idea is appealing, so if they keep on the good track, there is great chance that they become a success. Peerdea was created for users to tell the other members of the community what projects they are working on, and get feedback and suggestions about how to carry on with them. It works the other way round also, you can look at projects showed by other members, and post your impressions about them, so that the creator can use them to improve his work.

If you are a game developer, you can post an online version of your game and ask the other members to give it a try and tell you if they liked it or not, or what they would like you to add to make it more fun. Are you learning about photography too? What if you post some of your pictures and get some feedback about them? Comments will always be done in a polite way so that you don’t feel hurt about your creations. Drawings, handcrafts, art, whatever your trade is, you can share with everyone your production. And the result will be one where everybody made a contribution, making it better that the original if you chose to follow the advice you got.

Peerdea.com asks you to register to creat an account, in order to avoid spam or malicious messages from anyone. Once you are a member, it is very simple to publish whatever you want to show to the others, which in the site will be called “concepts”. This is to differentiate from the feedback comments, which will here be called “ideas”. Add more light to that picture, put some more action to that flash game, paint that part of the picture with dark blue, will all be ideas given to a concept posted on Peerdea.com.

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ClothApp.com – Know If A Style Is Good Or Not

December 22, 2011

An app that lets you know how suitable any style you’re thinking of wearing really is, Cloth is almost identical to Album Of Style and I Like My Style. We’ve already reviewed these two sites on KillerStartups.com, and you can read our original posts here and here. And I encourage you to do so now to understand the kind of services that Cloth has obviously been inspired by.

Ready? Good. Cloth works like these two fashion services. You download the app, you take a photo of yourself with the clothes that you can’t decide whether to wear or not, and then other site users will get to speak their minds. If they think wearing them would be a big fashion mistake, they’ll tell you as much. If they think any style you have trouble coming to terms with actually looks fantastic on you, they’ll tell you as much. And you’ll be able to act accordingly, and step into any significant event knowing that everybody is going to look at you for all the right reasons, not because you look like a fish out of water.

There’s little to add, really. Cloth does its bit more than well, but you can’t help thinking that somebody got there first. I certainly did, at least. Anyway, you can download Cloth here for free.

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Barkles.com – Hold Online Debates

December 5, 2011

Think of this platform as the Twitter for debates if you want to know what Barkles is all about. On Barkles.com you can tell the whole wide world how you feel about any sensitive or touchy issue, and then by sharing the unique URL that’s generated you can bring people from all over the Internet into the debate. This includes both your friends and your colleagues, and also those you’ve got a running rivalry with. What better place to try to top them than a site where just everybody can see what you’re discussing?

And as a user of the service, you can see what other people are discussing in one fell swoop. All the most popular and debated topics are grouped together, and you can always know how your biggest allies and foes feel about topics other than the ones they usually discuss with you.

Integration with services such as Facebook and Twitter is already provided, too. It’s very easy to make your whole social network become involved in what you’re arguing on Barkles.com, and get friends to support any point you’re trying to drive home. Just sign in to Barkles with the one social account you use the most, pick these folks you want to debate with, and stay sharp.

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Empedia.com – Comment Wikipedia Articles

October 26, 2011

Do you ever read something on Wikipedia and feel like you could add a lot to that particular article, but can’t do it since editing it lies well beyond your technical skills? Well, this is the site that you should head to the next time you feel that way. What Empedia does is to let you say what you have to say about anything you might have read on Wikipedia, right on a separate page that everybody else can then view and discuss further on and on.

On Empedia, everything boils down to finding a topic or issue that is relevant to you, adding your experiences, and then sitting back and waiting until somebody else has got anything to say about what you’ve submitted. And when that happens, then you can simply answer back, and take your original article where the conversation should take it.

Besides, you can create polls to go with any page that’s being discussed. That will let you know how people feel about anything that you’ve stated, in a quantitative way.

Empedia is free to join, accounts are created in a breeze, and once you’re a registered user of the site you’ll be able to share the way you feel pretty much about anything, and also to comment on what others have shared.

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SocialAnswers.com – Ask For Help

September 23, 2011

The name of this site says it all, really. On SocialAnswers.com you are enabled to ask people for their opinion, advice and assistance when it comes to anything you just can’t fathom out on your own. Are you wondering whether to paint the walls blue or red? Can’t decide where to take a first date for dinner? Do you wonder which movie you could watch on DVD with your five-year old daughter and your adolescent boy, without running the risk of either becoming bored? Well, this site is going to pull you out of your difficulties in all these scenarios, and out of virtually every other you could find yourself in.

The actual organization of the website, now, is not really that different from sites such as HelpOverflow and AnswersFinder, what with its main navigation menu letting you visualize all these questions that are open, the ones that have been viewed the most and the ones which have become archived.

And (the sad truth be said) Social Answers offers no real improvements over either site, or over any of the endless Q&A sites that dot the Web. I just wonder how far it can really get, and even whether it can even take off at all.

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OpDrop.com – Hold Online Debates

September 15, 2011

Platforms for holding online debates dot the Internet. There’s

WeDebate.it. There’s Debatewise. There’s

Debatewall. There’s a billion more. And if things keep moving at the speed they’re moving right now, we’ll get near the two million mark sooner than we think. OpDrop is the most recent online debating platform to have surfaced. Like all the others that have come before, it lets you make your stance clear as regards anything you are passionate about. Politics, economics, your best-loved comic book hero, your favorite football team… OpDrop enables you to discuss these things with all the people who are willing to listen. And answer back, of course.

Users of the site are actually ranked according to how prolific they are – the ones who start and become involved in more debates are rewarded for their allegiance and loyalty. And the newest opinions and disses that are posted on the site also have a corner of their very own.

It’s all very usable, very dynamic but it’s hardly anything new. A set of mobile applications are planned to be released before too long, and they might go into breathing some life into OpDrop. But I have my doubts whether that’ll be enough to make the site any more remarkable. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.

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Neomma.com – Influence Important People

September 2, 2011

The inspiration behind this service is quite noble, but one can’t help feeling that the whole site is more than a bit green. You see, Neomma is a website where anybody can team up with his friends and try to influence public figures. This is done by creating what are called “Inspiratives” – messages that are addressed to any such figure, and that are put his/her way when they have gained importance (IE, a lot of traction). The idea is that the public figure will reply to that message in due time, and let everybody know about what has been suggested or requested.

Not wanting to sound too sarcastic, but I think the chances of people like president Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Rupert Murdoch actually listening to what users of the site put forth are faint at best. Maybe some of these figures that are known to get involved in social services themselves (people like Ashton Kutcher or Vin Diesel) would be willing to listen, and stand as more reachable. But figureheads and those who run mega-corporations might not be that easily spurred into action. Of course, I might be wrong, and a service like Neomma may end up changing the way in which those in positions of power get to realize what they should be doing for those who put them there to begin with. Time will tell…

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CoverCake.com – Figure Out Which Books To Buy

August 2, 2011

CoverCake is the latest platform for those who are thinking about buying a book (any book) and they could really use some guidance. This website basically aggregates reviews both from “traditional” media (such as TV and radio) and from all the social sites of the hour. Then, taking all that information into account it can provide users with quite a true appreciation of the titles they are thinking about buying.

Having tried the site (I looked up “I Am Number Four” – yes, insert your gratuitous jokes right here), I can only say that I found it really useful. The insights of writers who have devoted their lives to literary criticism were put in a position where all the words from a younger generation of critics (who are necessarily more tech-savvy) perfectly balanced them out. In the case of “I Am Number Four”, older writers tended to focus on some of its narrative deficiencies, whereas younger writers praised the pace of the book itself. So, to all intents and purposes CoverCake brings the best of two worlds together.

And it does such a thing instantly – CoverCake can be used without the need to sign up for an account beforehand.

In the end, anything that can marry the old with the new this harmonically could be but good. Just look at all the different sources that are indexed by CoverCake – there was no way something like this could fall flat on its face.

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UserThought.com – User Feedback System

July 26, 2011

A fluid communication with customers is the true cornerstone for success. Knowing what your public want is the prerequisite for giving it to them. That applies to just any kind of business or venture. Websites are no exception to that golden rule. But webmasters have got one clear advantage when it comes to analyzing the way in which people are reacting to their sites thanks to services like UserThought – services that let them know how people are reacting to the content and designs they are favoring in quasi-real time.

UserThought lets visitors highlight the content they like (or don’t) on your site, and in addition to showing you these highlighted pieces of content the service allows users to provide their own feedback on anything they’ve highlighted.

These feedback analytics can then be incorporated with your current web analytics, and by taking all that data into account you should be able to start giving the ones who are paying your wages the kind of content they will react more keenly to.

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OvationApp.com – Measure Audience Enjoyment

July 15, 2011

An event is only as good or successful as the degree in which the audience becomes involved in what is going on. A passive audience equals an unmemorable, indistinctive event for everybody. But one that actively collaborates on what is being exposed or discussed guarantees that the event is not being forgotten by anybody, and that what has been conveyed will stick in everybodys minds better. Which might sound a little difficult, but which is not really that hard to do as long as one uses a tool like this one.

Ovation is an application that can be used to collect the feedback of the audience in just any kind of event. Concerts, debates, seminars, movie premieres… the response of people on all such events can be easily measured using Ovation. The members of the audience have got nothing to download – a mere slide of their fingers will let them express their degree of enjoyment and involvement in what is being discussed.

And it must be pointed out that even though this platform has been primarily devised as an audience response system for live events, it has other uses. For example, it can be employed as a testing platform for online media. Anywhere feedback needs to be collected will do.

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Ruck.us – No More Political Parties

June 28, 2011

You know, those who claim that the political landscape in the US is too polarized do have a point. There are only two dominant parties in the country, and when you think of the actual size of its territory then you can but wonder how representative that can be. It is interesting to see platforms like Ruck.us come around.

In essence, Ruck.us is a website where people can ditch their Republican and Conservative labels and share ideas for the betterment of the country with people who are willing to go the same way, and forget what party they theoretically belong to. If you decide to give Ruck.us a try, you will come across people who define themselves as fiscally conservative but socially liberal, or who think that just both parties spend too much on taxes, and that both are responsible for the financial climate of the country.

A site such as this one, then, intends to elicit dialogue between people who otherwise would be weighed down by their given political labels. It is a novel idea, and one I am sure a lot of people would feel attracted to. After all, how many discussions that could get somewhere are ruined by the roles people are attributed by others owing to their political allegiance? Exactly.

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TrueAbout.me – Have People Rate You

June 26, 2011

TrueAbout.Me is a new platform that basically lets anybody know what others think about him. By signing up for an account, people are enabling absolutely everybody to speak their minds. If you join, your friends will be able to tell you why they think you are the greatest guy around. And your foes will be allowed to tell you a few things you are surely not going to take that well. Ah, but such is the magic of the site…

In all cases, comments can be voted up and down. In practice, this means that any person who places an untrue/questionable comment on your profile will have that disregarded by the ones who know you best. And integration with services like Facebook and Twitter is already provided. This gives everything a somehow larger scope.

That is basically what this site is all about. You can join for free right now, claim your own TrueAbout.Me page and then begin rating others and being rated yourself.

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Fathm.net – Online Polling Platform

June 21, 2011

Fathm is a newly-launched website that aims to take the concept of online polling as we have always known it, and update it for these times we live in – times in which everything is intrinsically social. You see, people who use Fathm are enabled to say what they think about just anything. Others can then vote on these opinions and speak their own minds in turn, until a comprehensive debate in which the pros and cons of just anything has been created. The way everything is structured, the top opinions are always displayed on top, so that people who are new to the site are empowered to see which positions are more widely-accepted, and make more connected statements from the very beginning.

The eventual aim of the site is to become the place where complex issues are openly discussed and debated, and (hopefully) something of a consensus is reached regarding how people should proceed in such cases. Of course, whether people will really begin turning that knowledge into positive action is something entirely different altogether. But it is as good a starting point as any other.

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SocialHowl.com – Share Your First Impression

June 7, 2011

SocialHowl is a new resource that is focused on letting people share nothing but first impressions. Users of SocialHowl can let others know about the way that they felt when they first met. If someone you met for the first time came across as charming, overbearing, well-mannered or coarse then you will be able to tell them as much using this social service. And once an opinion has been submitted, then that becomes indexed and it can be searched by just any other person who uses the service. This means that it is very easy to know if you are the only person who has found someone hard to stand, or if that is an opinion mostly everybody shares.

And you can always look yourself up, and see what impressions you are giving others these days. If the image you are conveying is a bit sour and you are not coming across as half as nice as you really are, then you will be able to do something about that right away.

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WhatIsWrongWith.Me – The Way Others See You

April 13, 2011

What Is Wrong With Me is self-defined as an anonymous feedback service that will let you know what your friends honestly think about. The truth is that a service like this one has to be anonymous by it mere nature – asking a friend directly for such information might as well spell the end of the friendship itself.

Using this service involves little more than signing up (for free), and then spreading the feedback link that will be generated. Any person you share this link with will be able to tell you all the things he has always wanted to tell you, but that he kept to himself simple because speaking them out would have hurt your feelings.

Of course, using a system like this one is also sort of opening the floodgates, and letting people that hold a grudge against you come blasting in. There is nothing that could be done about that, really – it is all part of the combo. Take it as the edgy element that will keep things from ever becoming boring.

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ProdTwit.com – Shop With The Help Of Other Buyers

March 28, 2011

ProdTwit is a site that serves two main purposes. The first is letting you know what people who are considering buying any product that you are also keen on getting are saying in real time. The other is every bit as important (maybe even more), and it is letting you realize where to buy such product at the best possible price.

That is, when talking with people about what you want to buy chances are they will tell you of any store where they have seen that specific product at a price much lower than you were willing to pay. And that is something quite likely to happen – there are so many daily deal websites around that the chances of somebody having heard of one that you knew nothing about are never remote.

So, ProdTwit is a really flexible shopping companion. It is not going to radically change the way you buy items online. But it is going to let you save more than a good couple of bucks every now and then. And that is all that matters at the end of the day.

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UsrJoy.com – Collect User Feedback

March 17, 2011

If you are looking for a quick way to collect feedback from the users of your site, then this is as good a service as any other. Named UsrJoy, it will let you add a feedback button to your website for people to send their feedback and opinions as directly as they could possibly want.

The implementation of UsrJoy is really painless, as the feedback button (which gives way to a form) can be implemented without having to change the structure of your site. It is as easy as the act of cutting and pasting a string of code. And your support team will have access to a dashboard for monitoring everything.

Two different plans are provided: Basic and Plus. The Basic plan costs nothing, the Plus plan is $ 12 per month. The main differences lie in the number of members the support team can have (3 in the first case, 7 in the second) and the volume of communications that can be handled. The Basic plan will let your team handle 30 feedbacks per month, whereas the Plus plan will let your support personnel deal with as much as 300 feedbacks every single month.

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Rrrather.com – Give Your Opinion

March 14, 2011

Rrrather is a social site in which people are enabled to cast a vote on any of two possible options. These are usually ready-made for debate – the typical questions that are asked on the site are whether you prefer to be forgotten once you are dead or remembered hatefully, or whether you would rather go on a trip with your gang of friends or your loved one.

These questions are arranged in the following eight categories: Situation, People, Relationships, Entertainment, Sports, Tech, Random and Gross. And they are all asked by users of the site – you will be able to ask just any old thing you want (as long as it is not something morally or legally questionable, obviously).

The creation process is really simple – you just input the question, supply the two possible choices, and upload an image to go with each of these. There is no need for you to sign up or disclose any kind of personal information.

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