The birth of MakeUseOf.com:

Well, basically I got the idea while I was doing my first year of masters in Denmark. After hardcore bachelors in computational science doing masters program in business was like a chill out. Easy lectures and lots of free time. Back then I used to share an apartment with 2 of my friends, none of whom had much interest in web. When it comes to me, for the last 5-6 years most of my daily life was centered around it. On top of that web was booming, so called web2.0 era’s first celebrities (Digg, Flickr, Delicious, etc.) were just starting to accumulate all the Buzz.

It was exciting moments. I would frequently start a sentence with something like; ‘Today I found out about new service that …’ and my girlfriend would be like; ‘Ok! it’s started…’ . I had lots of energy but nowhere I could apply it on. Then around march 2006, I heard about Amazon’s new bestseller ‘Naked Conversations’, everyone was talking about it, so I read it as well. Once I was done with it, I was determined to start a blog and maybe after a month or two I went ahead and registered makeuseof.com. And somewhere around July, I talked to Kaly (see below) and asked him if he would be interested to join me. As always, he was up for it. That’s mainly it.

As about makeuseof.com, it’s very different from most of the other tech blogs/websites. It’s unique and original in what it reviewes and how it does it. On makeuseof we don’t write about any new web applications that comes around but only about ones that are COOL, FREE and USEFUL. It may be a subjective judgement but that’s how it is. We also try to keep it simple and all accessible, so that even newbies who never used such sites like Digg and Delicious or ones who think AJAX is famous washing powder brand can easily find their way around.

Period

About me (Aibek)

I consider myself a pioneer of new generation of geeks, you may call it geek 2.0. On the one hand I retain basics of being a geek/nerd i.e. being good in science, treating my PC as member of my family, and read lots of stuff on a daily basis. On the other hand I am good in sports, at excellent terms with females, hold PhD equivalent degrees in several video games, love to talk about Religion and Philosophy, and have a blessing to always find myself among coolest and smartest people around. These days, when I am at home I read and read, sleep, drink lots of coke, browse web, watch movies, blog on makeuseof, and working on my next ‘to-become-huge’ web service.

As I have mentioned above I have degree in Computational Science from JUB (Jacobs University Bremen, Germany) and about to get my masters in Entrepreneurship from AAU (Aalborg University, Denmark). See me in one of my ‘masters’ lectures below…

About Kaly

Kaly is a dude from Glasgow (Scotland/ UK) who is a very good friend of mine. Unique, never boring, extremely smart, inspiring person with always something interesting to tell. In addition to web he is quite fond of projectors, video games, gadgets, cooking, arranging things, LCD TVs, experimenting, and almost any time wasting activity. His contribution to the concept of this blog is enormous.

About Mark

I am originally from Scotland and now living as an ex-pat in Germany.  After working in various industries including the British Civil Service, I am now self-employed as a professional freelance writer, blogger, editor and proofreader.

I am highly active on the internet - as well as writing for five blogs, I am also a book proofreader for Project Gutenberg. I am also active on Stumbleupon, Digg and Twitter.

As well as writing my own blog and for Make Use Of, I also write for Google Tutor, Geeks Are Sexy, NowSourcing, and Search Engine News. For two years (2004 & 2005), I was a columnist on Auctionbytes covering eBay and e-commerce related stories and I have worked in the eBay / e-commerce sector as a consultant and copywriter.

You can also see my other site which I describe as my “online playground”.

On the rare occasions when I am away from the computer, my biggest interests are reading, collecting books, and collecting stamps. I inherited the stamp collecting bug from my grandfather who has been collecting for over sixty years. Thanks to the internet and eBay, I am now catching up with him since only 2002! To say he is shocked would be a serious understatement.   He now wants to learn all about “that internet-thing”