Fortunately, there is. It’s called BountyIt. BountyIt is a place for business to hire people for small jobs. It uses a unique crowd sourcing model that pools the net talents of the web at large.

BountyIt Home

Here’s how it works. First businesses will post their bounty. They describe a job and set a price. The jobs can be anything from Feedback, Service Wanted, Service Offered, and Promotion. Feedback is where you’re just asking people’s opinion on something. Given the nature of the web and these types of forums most likely you’ll be receiving feedback from more technically minded crowds. Service Wanted is likely to be considered the crux of BountyIt in that business can post clear statements of work and receive bids for it. Service Offered is a bit of a switch-a-roo where those looking to sell their talents and creative wares, can do so. And finally Promotion is where minds meet to provide and buy slices of the ever elusive marketing pie. I found it just a little bit slightly humorous that they suggest a tweet could be sold for $1. As of June 2011 there were approximately 200 million tweets sent per day. In the world of supply and demand I’d say that sets the price of tweets close to zero. And we send our deepest condolences to anyone who finds themselves on the receiving end of ANY OF THEM. (We aren’t big fans of Twitter around here…)

But enough of our failed effort to defeat Twitter by sending angst in its general direction, let’s talk about BountyIt. As mentioned, it uses crowd sourcing. That is, multiple people have the opportunity to work on the project. Each project is given a deadline at which point all those who provided work, promotion, etc., are in line to be paid. Once the bounty is closed the poster will either pay the person whose work they valued the most or they’ll split the payment among a series of contributors. So for the poster it’s a great way to get a lot of work done, and for the workers it gives them a chance to get some cash.

Bounty Poster for Web Design Project

Getting things done is a top priority for all businesses. They throw tasks around to the staff but inevitably things crop up that are outside everyone’s skill set. BountyIt is on the job. It allows businesses to post their jobs and get a pool of workers to fill the need. It also allows people to market their skills in service to other businesses. It’s a creative solution to filling in holes in one’s workforce. And it also allows those who have marketable talents to fight for some hard earned dollars.

After a series of board meetings and many pots of coffee, the holy decision was made that something needed to be done. Church websites needed to no longer be the plastic billboards that they are. These online offerings of a few pages of information about their services to the Lord will no longer suffice. They do little to hold the attention of the wandering eyes of the aspiring pious. It’s time for something new. It’s time for something that will keep the flock from straying to foreign pastures whilst away from the pews. And so with the clash of a mighty scepter and loud roar, HuDDleFish was sent to the earth.

HuDDleFish Home

Although only 40% of the letters in its name are capitalized, 100% of HuDDleFish is designed to help churches build websites. We aren’t talking digital brochures with service times and a few stock smiling pictures. We’re talking about fully functional web applications that can be readily customized for the ongoing needs of the ministry. And what’s more, it’s hailed to be so easy even the head pastor can use it. (Which is almost like seeing them jogging on the open ocean.)

The way it works is churches first need to decide to get on the internet bandwagon. That is, they need to decide to change their website from a portal of information to an online ministry. Once that happens, the floodgates are opened. HuDDleFish’s holy waters come rushing in with over 60 widgets designed specifically for the needs of churches. The drag ‘n’ drop interface allows the site to be updated and modified as needed.

Some of the features include online forms, photo albums, prayer request tools, web books, surveys and quizzes, smart calendars, and online courses. The entire congregation can register for accounts which integrate with many parts of the site. So when someone registers for an event it will appear on their calendar, for instance. Profile information is also used to manage the entire church directory. Access controls allow users to be granted editing and viewing rights to various sections of the website. This allows different members of the pastorate, staff, and church to maintain and oversee portions of the site.

Other available sections include a volunteer management tool, visitor sign-ups, and event management. Then there are multiple financial tools including the ability to set up e-commerce features to sell things online, online fundraising, donations, as well as a yellow pages directory. The yellow pages directory allows churches to provide classifieds space to their congregation. All pages and sections can be readily added and taken down as the ministry grows and changes.

HuDDleFish Features

When questioned about the imminent sanctification of cyberspace Ed Schnanders with the Adult Websites are Neat Foundation said he had little concern about it. He’s quoted as saying, “As long as they keep repressing the congregation a steady stream of parishioners will find their way to our side of the net.” He continued with, “We just hope they don’t start reading the more lurid parts of the Bible lest they take away the mystique!” With a sly grin he gloated, “Fortunately, many passages are overlooked as not nice or not family friendly.”

The battle for the lost souls of man is finding its way to the web. HuDDleFish is the premier ministry tool with which churches can fight the good fight. They can build active, easily updatable websites providing an oasis from the temptations lurking just a few clicks away. With it churches will be able to provide the faithful a safe haven online where they can continue to learn, grow, and fellowship.

So how does one make money online? As one astute technology entrepreneur pointed out, charge your customers! This novel age old idea has made its way throughout the internet. Some news sites have attempted to charge for premium content. And many online services offer a free basic package with upgraded full featured content for a fee. And so once again, the cycle of the internet economy has returned to financial equilibrium. But not all sites are so lucky. Perhaps they don’t offer a service that they might charge for. When was the last time you paid Google to search for something? Or Facebook to connect with all your friends? The answer is you paid them by viewing their ads.

Yes, there’s an obscenely large amount of money transferring hands online over advertising. With this stunning discovery in mind, many entrepreneurs embark with the hopes of making money from ads. As it turns out, this isn’t that easy either. The cold hard truth of the matter is most viewers don’t like ads. They don’t want to click them. They don’t like pop-ups, pop-unders- they don’t like any of it. They just want the content that they came for. To the end user ads are most typically perceived as spam, which can leave an underwhelming ROI for site owners.

But not all ads are flash enabled widgets that loudly offer you a free iPod Nano. Some ads are those that people might actually like to see. Among the most popular of these, are videos. Yes, video ads can at times be entertaining. Sometimes marketing teams are able to design something that really generates a chuckle and causes people to share it with all their friends. The ever elusive viral marketing is what every company hopes for.

For the past six years a video advertiser/publisher network has been growing in our midst. It’s called Unruly, and it’s changing the way companies advertise and the way site owners can monetize their websites. At its core Unruly is a network that connects publishers of videos with a network of sites that will display them. For publishers it’s a high end market thing, where they customize each campaign to the needs of the client. That is to say, it’s not for your every day website to throw together a home made video and cut it loose on their network for 50 cents per view. The videos are well developed professionally produced comedic shorts.

Sample Unruly Video.

For publishers though it’s a different story. Unruly has arrangements to display videos on high end sites, but anyone can join. And, they boast a higher pay rate than other ad networks, including Adsense. More importantly, for those of us who are a bit ideological about what goes on their sites, you’re able to select and control what videos are displayed. So site owners can include video content that their users will appreciate and find interesting.

Unruly’s latest news is that they acquired the ever elusive seed money to the tune of $25m. That’s about $25m more dollars than most sites make, to provide some perspective. With billions of video views, which receive throngs of Facebook shares, they have a strong foothold in the social video market.

In what has been hailed as an app that, “takes the mystery out of the dating dumps,” WotWentWrong answers the call that never came. That is, when the person you’re dating just stops calling and you want to know why. WotWentWrong is on the job and will get a full report on your personal flaws and ineptitudes that prevented your date from pursuing your affections.

The way it works is simple. First you’ve gotta get dumped. This is actually harder than it seems. See, in a strange flaw of human nature people are attracted to those that are terrible for them. It’s being on your best behavior that makes them lose interest. So really, the more you try to get dumped the more likely they’re going to want to keep you around.

Once you manage to get dumped, or the person finally decides they can’t take it anymore and stops calling. Or maybe their friends hold an intervention and whisk them away to a mountain resort to keep them from their ‘trying to get dumped’ mate. Then you’re ready to use WotWentWrong.

Now that you’ve been successfully (and in most cases) inexplicably dumped, you want to know why things fell apart. There you were in a relationship and they all of a sudden lost interest. They might have found someone else, or they might have been turned off by something that you were doing. With WotWentWrong you can set up a quick dating dump ready form and send it off to them. Your dumper will then be (presumably) delighted to provide you the feedback necessary for you to improve your dating services for the next person.

While a very small segment of critics have expressed concern that this brings, “Psycho to a whole new level,” we’ve decided to refrain from passing judgment. We will note that there’s a reason why the tried and true, “It’s not you, it’s me” has been around for so long. But fear not, this is one of the options in the “Hey! You just dumped me! Will you please now fill out a survey?” survey.

WotWentWrong- The Dumped Form

The internet is a place for new ideas and for people to move the things they do offline, to cyberspace. WotWentWrong does that. Rather than having a mutual friend call, or spending countless hours wondering, you can now safely know why you were dumped and make appropriate behavioral corrections. Since online dating innovations are beginning to go past the superficial, “Hello, nice to meet you,” stages of romance, we’d like to suggest the following applications that the makers of Dating Dumps, err I mean WotWentWrong, might consider.

• An application that helps matriarchs and spinsters join forces in harassing those whose singleness is, in their view, salvageable.
• A timer mobile app that lets people enter relevant social cues and then tells them exactly how long they should wait before calling their love interest.
• A web site that helps cultivate a relationship with your ex’s best friend, or your best friend’s ex. Forms will be sent out, permission will be asked for. Then a knowledge transfer session will be scheduled to help ease the transition. We can all be adults about this people- you know everyone does it anyway.
• A dating website that takes you through the basics of online bios and whatnot. Then once it seems it’s about to introduce you to potential mates it brings up a screen and sends constant reminders to, “Just go to the gym.”

In any case, WotWentWrong has broken new ground in the online dating arena. Indeed they have built an application that allows people to inquire of their lost love interests as to why they left. It’s the romance story of the 21^st century. But hey, a little constructive criticism couldn’t hurt, could it? Time will tell.

The fact of the matter is that in most economies, the job market is still somewhat bleak.  Take Australia, for example.  Just a few days ago came news that unemployment is likely to creep up, reversing a happy trend that saw job vacancies in the private sector decrease by almost four percent in November.

What’s the point?  The point is thus: still mired in employment purgatory, millions of Australians are looking for jobs, and the “blindly send out 4,234 resumes a day” strategy isn’t the best use of their time.  They need customization, ease of use, precision.  They need Jobseeker.com.au.

Jobseeker Home

Jobseeker.com.au is a free Australia job search aggregator that makes searching for a job far less dreadful than it normally is.  In fact, it makes it enjoyable.  So let’s take a look, shall we?

At first, once you reach the home page, you may feel like you’ve stumbled upon the wrong site.  It’s simple and clean.  A bit too simple and clean.  You may wonder, where are the bells and whistles?  The annoying flashing ads?  The company spokesman who eerily resembles a used car salesman?  Answer: they’re not here, and that’s the beauty of it all - Jobseeker has the simplest, most intuitive interface in the job search business, and as we shall see, it makes navigation a breeze.

There are simply two boxes: “Keywords” and “Location.”  I typed in “Android” and “Sydney,” the logic being, as far as Sydney jobs go, being an Android developer would be cool.   The results popped up, and if the results look familiar, it’s no coincidence: they resemble the Google Search results, bringing an air of comfort and familiarity to the proceedings.

From there, the options are limitless and actionable: you can create an email alert for the search, calculate jobs within certain kilometer radius from Sydney (or any city), sort jobs by list date, title, location, job type, and source (e.g. job placement services.)  Pretty cool.

Clicking on a job directs you to the source itself.  So, in the case where I clicked on a certain position, I was taken to The West Australian, where I could read up on the iPhone/iPad/Android Developer gig.  From the Search results page I could Save the job (registration is required), thereby creating an easy-to-manage dashboard of all active job prospects, which is a stark improvement over, say, trying to do it in Gmail, or Godforbid, a spreadsheet.

Jobseeker Android Jobs in Sydney

These filtering tools are especially cool because pretty quickly users will pick up on certain trends that will, over time, make the job-hunting process more efficient.  They may soon find, for example, that jobs listed by a certain source, say the recruiting firm Skillquest, are far more attractive and applicable than from a competing firm.  Another example: in the Search results, under a specific job summary, there’s a “More” link.  Click on it, and you’ll find the permalink to the job, duplicate jobs, and jobs from the same source/recruiters.  And the fact that jobs can be searched by “Type” - full-time, contract, casual/temporary, etc. - saves time as well.

Which brings me back to “A Tale of Two Cities.”  Full disclosure: I never read it, but it takes place during the French Revolution.  The French Revolution, as you may recall, was a…messy affair.  Lots of angry mobs, castles being stormed, and that tremendously efficient innovation named after a French doctor named Joseph-Ignace Guillotin.

I’d venture to say that taken in context, our present-day challenge of job-hunting - especially with an easy, free, and intuitive job search platform like Jobseeker.com.au - maybe isn’t so bad after all.  Sure, not the “best of times,” but certainly not the “worst.”  More like “not the best, but certainly not the absolute worst of times where, among other things, you could get beheaded for looking at someone the wrong way.”

OK.  Time’s up.

For me, when I think of the Internet, I think of, naturally, the words “Thomas Hobbes.”

You know good ol’ Tom, right?  He was the famous English philosopher, mostly known for his political stuff, and he coined the phrase “nasty, brutish, and short” when describing ancient society.  That’s what life was like before pre-historic man decided to set up some form of “government” and relinquish total freedom.

After all, since life was chaotic and dangerous, why not band together and implement order, so people can live, work, and eat their wooly mammoth drumsticks in peace?

And the same goes for the Internet.  It can be a wild, anarchic, and downright mean place.  But fortunately every now and then someone comes along to make things less inimicable.  ImgBox, which provides fast and simple image hosting, is just that someone, and - not coincidentally - they’re today’s feature.

ImgBox Home

ImgBox lets you safely and ethically upload images and then link to them from their site.  I say “ethically” because ImgBox solves the brutish problem that has continued to proliferate across the Internet, and that would be hotlinking.

No, “hotlinking” it isn’t a drunken, bratwurst-infused tailgating ritual outside of Lambeau Field on Packers game day; rather, hotlinking is when people link directly to images from other places.

Traditionally, it has gotten a bad rap because people who hotlink an image from someone else’s website, rather than uploading the photo on their own server, are essentially stealing the host image’s bandwidth.  Not cool.   And it’s into this Hobbesian dystopia that steps ImgBox, who establishes order and calm by saying, “Hey guys, we got this.  Host your images on our server, and hotlink to them all you want.  It’s on us.  Keep your server free for more important stuff, like that pirated copy of the new Sherlock Holmes movie that looks all pixilated and washed out.” (I saw a guy watching it on a plane the other day.)

And it’s true, there’s no catch.  Uploading images to Imgbox is like exiting an online confession booth - you feel clean and free having hotlinked without shame or guilt.  But how’s the site itself?  Glad you asked.

The interface is simple and clean and first-time visitors are immediately prompted to “Select Files” to upload.  I did - it was a simple old jpeg - and then was prompted to select the content type (Safe for Work or Not Safe for Work), Thumbnail Size, and Gallery Option, meaning I could create a gallery to put it in should I felt so inclined.

ImgBox Photo Upload

I did it and was then taken to a veritable buffet of link-hosting options pertaining to the image.  There was the url for the image itself, a link to it, as well as the HTML and BB code for copy and pasting purposes.  And that was that.  Imgbox also brings of host of other goodies to the table.  It’s really fast, has 10MB maximum file size, and boasts unlimited storage space and time. No sign up is required, it’s free, and you also have the option of creating your own account in order to keep track of your images and galleries or edit and delete old images.  And most importantly, your images are confidential and hidden from search engines on ImgBox’s site.

The practical benefits of a service like ImgBox, of course, are obvious.  More than ever, “content is king,” and ImgBox can be, in essence, your own personal server to upload content that can be linked to websites, blogs, eBay auctions, you name it.  So, if you ask me, ImgBox provides a must-have service while eliminating the sticky moral quandaries associated with old-school hotlinking.

Which brings us back to Hobbes.

His main thing was that to avoid mass chaos, people form social contracts that, in turn, form the basis of civil society.  And while the Web may be far from tamed, ImgBox’s offering - in essence, a social contract enabling users to hotlink to them for free and in an ethical manner - signifies one small step to a more just, cultured, and civilized Web.

(Now if they could just find a way to purge all images of the Kardashians.  Then we’d be talkin’ some straight-up Utopia action.)

One of the most common workflows is for people to press control-C to copy and then control-V to paste. Many of us do this multiple times a day. For instance you’re reading an article online and come across a term or name you aren’t familiar with. You cut and paste the name into a Google search box. Or perhaps you come across something you’d like to buy. Again, you press control-C and then navigate out to Amazon to explore it further. It seems many of these repetitive key and click workflows all start with control-C.

One of the hallmarks of good User Design is reducing the number of buttons people have to press to do what they’d like. So it stands to reason that a better design would start with when users press control-C, and then fast forward to what they would like to do. Such a fast forward option now exists, with click.to. click.to, found at clicktoapp.com, is a small desktop app that will revolutionize the way you use the computer.

Once installed click.to tracks the times users add items to their clipboard. That is, every time they press control-C or right click and copy. Once the item is added to the clipboard an opaque set of buttons appears from which the user can click. They can press one of these buttons, and in one fell swoop they can complete the action they were planning. So if I copy a name to the clipboard intending to enter it in Google search, as soon as I press control-C I’ll be presented with a series of buttons. From there I can select Google, and with that my default browser will be opened to Google’s search page with the term’s search results displayed. The total effort exerted by me consists of pressing control-C and then a single click.

click.to uploading a photo to Facebook

This simple workflow is certainly convenient when it comes to searching terms on Google. This is just scratching the surface though. click.to really starts to shine as you add more and more apps to your list. There’s anything from making Twitter posts, Facebook updates, uploading pics to Flickr, and any number of actions you might do online. It makes navigation of the web quicker, faster, and easier.

The other workflow that click.to automates are for local apps. So if you highlight and copy text that you’d like to include in a Word document, you can do so. Or if you come across data that you’d like to add to Excel it can just as easily be added there as well. All these user workflows are common tasks people do in their day to day work. click.to makes them a few steps shorter.

click.to Button Panel

The list of web and desktop apps that are supported by click.to includes many of the most popular apps. It’s by no means a comprehensive list of apps though. If there’s an app that someone uses frequently they can add it as a custom app. That way people can customize their workflows both locally and online so common tasks are just one click away.

Visionaries and entrepreneurs attempt to come up with new and innovative ways for people to utilize computers. These include touch screens, optical readers, and any number of ways to send and receive information from the computer. click.to makes logical and good use of the tools at hand and makes them easier to use. Rather than clicking multiple times to upload a photo, or search on a term, you only need to click once. It’s the new way to open applications and helps us get to where we’re going faster.

The joy of reading starts at a very early age. The classic adage is that kids go to school to learn their ABCs. This can be taken as a figurative way of saying that they’re laying the foundation of learning upon which they’ll build their lives. And it all starts with reading.

As such, there are entire categories of books geared for each step of the way. First kids start with picture books, which may include a few words or two. Gradually those words come to form sentences, and eventually they become full fledged stories. As children become more adept at understanding the text, the pictures all but disappear. These part text, part picture books are an essential step in learning to read.

Bringing this entire process online, is uTales. uTales is a twofold website. First and foremost, it’s a site where children can download imaginative and creative books suitable for their reading level. Second, it’s a place where people can create such books and make them available for all. That is to say, it’s an online publishing network for authors and designers of children’s books. The entire suite of books is available on the iPad, iPhone, home computer, with Android access coming soon.

The core of uTales is the books themselves. These can be sorted by language, age group, and category. Most are available in the $3 to $4 dollar range, or you can sign up for $10/month for full access. These brightly illustrated books bring to life the stories within, helping to open up the world of reading to children. There’s a free trial for those who’d like to test it out first.

In the same way that authors tend to disappear behind the text of their creations, so they are in the background with uTales as well. Most people will come to the site to download and read books on their mobile devices. But the authors’ section is a rather impressive application, built with professional book design in mind. It comes with a drag and drop book creator where you can add text and images to create the story. A likely workflow is that an author will partner with a designer who will collectively create the story online. Once finished they can press the publish button and begin selling their creation. A set of How-To tutorials for authors can be found here. All books are reviewed prior to publication to ensure they’re suitable for the intended audience.

I Can't Hear You, I Can't See You

If you’re going to build a web application, you might as well do a complete job at it. uTales does just that with its all in one publishing network and book store front for children’s stories. It gives seasoned professionals a venue to distribute their creations, and allows amateurs to try their hand at creating children’s stories. The net result is that there will be more, quality children’s books available.

The gift of reading is one that stays with you for life. The best time to teach it is when children are young. uTales opens up this gift in a new way, so children can access books digitally, rather than the Crayola scribbled books that litter their play areas. It helps kids learn the love of reading, and facilitates the creation and distribution of books.

When it comes to being an expert in web building, one piece of building websites is to include forms. Forms are found in just about every website out there. They’re the basis of what makes the internet interactive and have allowed for online communities to exist and ecommerce to thrive. Just about everybody who can build a website can build a form.

So why is there a need to outsource such a simple endeavor? It’s just as easy to create the form yourself, which most people know how to do anyway. As it turns out, there are forms, and then there are forms. A barebones minimalist form will do little to impress your user base. Drab text boxes with a few radio buttons will get the job done, but to spruce things up you need a better solution. You need JotForm.

JotForm is built by form people. We aren’t sure exactly what form people are like, but we do know they exist. Just like all of us have hobbies of various sorts, the JotForm folks are really into forms. Make fun if you must, but the JotForm people have come up with a fully featured form builder tool. Moreover, it’s free for limited usage. Impressively, they don’t curtail the functionality for non paid accounts, only the overall usage.

A JotForm form is special in that it provides many easily integrated widgets you can add to your form. Its drag and drop interface allows people to add all the basic form information and then a variety of other features as well. These include, surveys, payment options, calendars to pick dates, and a Captcha option. I have a soft spot for Captcha systems, in case anyone’s wondering. The full listing of form options can be found on their site, which will undoubtedly impress most web developers. The star rating system, slider, and grading options are particularly interesting. For advanced users you can set up conditions based upon users’ actions. You can also integrate it with a Facebook application.

JotForm Sample

Once you’ve constructed the form the only thing left to do is post it online. There are many different embed options including iFrame, Lightbox, Pop-up, or you can use the source code. The simplest is to embed it on a web page just like a video or any other embeddable object.

JotForm is the type of tool that we could talk at length about, or just direct you to their service. The WYSIWIG interface is one of the best we’ve seen and is worth a look-see for all web design enthusiasts. And with that, we applaud JotForm for their sincere and heartfelt dedication to an aspect of web development that is both critical and a tad bit mundane. Using their tools allows developers to work on the more pressing aspects of their sites, and leave the forms to those who enjoy them most.

What bands need most is for people to get the word out about their music. In fact, this is what every start-up initiative needs. Consultants need a home online to direct people to. Many people enjoy having a home page that represents their skills and interests. By now just about everybody has a homepage online somewhere.

Portfolio pages can be created in a variety of different ways. The truly inspired can build them from scratch with HTML and style sheets. This presents the issue that you’re reinventing the wheel each and every time. Sidestepping this is to hire someone to build one for you. Those who are skilled in the arts of web development will almost invariably be faster and better than people setting one up for the first time. But paying someone may cost more money than you intended. It also requires a certain amount of oversight to ensure the final product is to your liking. There needs to be a way to build a site on your own but doesn’t make you start from scratch.

As it turns out there are many ways to utilize prebuilt tools to build websites. Google and Yahoo offer various versions of these, along with any number of other vendors. The question becomes which should you choose, and why. Whatfolio is one such provider of online portfolio building tools, and they bring a new slant to their product. You can not only build a website, but it’s readily converted to be iPad, tablet, or mobile device format as well. With it anybody can access your site from the device that’s most convenient to them. So if you meet someone at a social gathering and want to share your site, they can bring it up on their Droid or Blackberry right then and there.

When building any site content is key. Whatfolio’s prebuilt pieces give you a number of widgets you can add. These include Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, or RSS feeds from your favorite blog. You can also add content from your Tumblr account including posts, photos, quotes, music, and videos. Or you include your Blogger account. Finally, and true to our highest ideals, you can add Bandsintown and Soundcloud. What would the world be without music?

Whatfolio Home

The core offering for Whatfolio is free. You can set up an online portfolio and point the entire world to it. Soon to be offered you’ll have the ability to remove the Whatfolio branding and solely include your own logos and labels. You can also use your own domain, which makes it a fully white label solution.

Whatfolio is a dynamic tool that people can utilize to create a presence online. Whether they’re a business, an inspired individual, or an up and coming band, it’s an easy way to set up an attractive portfolio website. With it all people can bring a site online, which can be viewed across multiple mobile apps.