Posts Tagged «webware»

Ever hear part of a catchy tune on the radio or in a CD store? Did you think of the song a little later and think I wish I could remember more of those lyrics! This site might help out: Midomi allows you to hum or sing part of a song and it will make suggestions based on tonality and rhythm.

You’ll need a microphone so your computer can “hear” you and send the sound data over to Midomi. In a simple test humming part of The Beatles’ Yesterday, Midomi found it as the top result of listings that were “. . . most similar to what [ I ] just sang”. The longer clip you sing, the more accurate the search results.

During another informal test by my workmate it took a couple of tries, the first two times were interrupted by questions “why do I have this microphone on? Are you recording me?”. Eventually Midomi came through though, identifying Shania Twain’s Man! I Feel Like a Woman!

It’s also fun listening to clips of other people singing. The site keeps recordings of member soundbytes. Midomi is another site capitalizing on some of those Web 2.0 concepts like community driven content and sharing information surrounding a common hobby: music!

That’s the question Browsershots will help answer. After entering a URL in the processing queue you’ll be able to see a series of screenshots taken while visiting your site with a variety of systems.

Click on the image below to see an enlarged version of the options available.

Click for a larger image.

It’s a great way to verify the code on your site works with a wide set of systems and browsers. Browsershots is still in Alpha though so don’t be surprised if features appear or disappear without notice.

What if you could find out what the world thinks is the best or worst in every experience in life? The best books, the worst car models, the funnest vacation spots on Earth. That’s what Amazon’s Unspun aims to provide.

As you can imagine, Amazon has plenty to gain by building community around important topics, especially when it concerns the gargantuan casserole of products they offer.

That aside, the service is useful and fun. In just a few minutes I learned about a few new search engines to try out thanks to a list of top search engines the community is ranking. And, it’s easy to embed the list in blogs (see below). You can bet money that this service will continue to grow fast as people learn more about what other people think.

Top Search Engines from Amazon’s Unspun

If you’re looking to buy or sell a house, sometimes it’s difficult to determine a fair price. Beyond that, it can be useful to understand market trends. For example if there are a lot of houses selling in a particular region it may be a signal to investigate.

Zillow That’s where Zillow comes in handy. The site immediately presents a couple of search boxes to identify what area you’re interested in. After that it generates a map showing homes that are for sale, recently sold, or make me move (for those with deeper pockets). There are also a variety of filtering options on a left nav bar and each property listed shows price and many provide pictures and detailed descriptions.

This is making some folks in the real estate business uncomfortable as one of their value drivers is providing the same statistical information Zillow now hands out freely.