Setting up a forum is very fast and simple. Just set your forum URL when you register and fix your board settings in the admin panel. The admin panel gives you quick access to forum functions, themes, and thread categories. You can also install cool plugins to enhance your forum.

Vanilla has an intuitive set of features for such a simple program. Users can bookmark discussions, read activity feeds of other users, and create private conversation threads. Vanilla also has a Facebook-like function where you can post random thoughts and musings in your profile. Premium features are also available such as login integration to your website.

Features:

• Free, quick, and simple forum setup.
• Control your forum from the admin panel – manage themes, add plugins, add categories, set user roles and permissions, and more.
• Post and share what you are up to in your activity feed.
• Users can bookmark their favorite discussions, send private messages, and view profiles of other users.
• Optional premium features are also supported.
• Similar sites: Forumotion and Omgili.

Check out Vanilla @ www.vanillaforums.com

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• Forumotion: Create Your Own Unlimited Forum
• xFruits: All In One RSS Feed Tools Website
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To create yours, select your preferred forum platform (phpBB2, punBB and Invision), fill out details (title, category, subdomain etc) and choose the email and password for the admin account. Done!

Features:

• Free, easy to use forum hosting service.
• Create your own free forum at http://yourname.forumotion.com.
• Unlimited forum messages and users.
• Unlimited image and file uploads (per file restriction: 2MB).
• No ads or external branding on your forum.
• More than 3000 available forum skins.
• Choose between popular forum platforms – phpBB2, phpBB3, punBB and Invision. You can switch them at any moment.
• Promote your forum in Forumotion directory of forums.

Check out Forumotion @ www.forumotion.com

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• Vanilla: Fast & Free Forum Hosting
• WEbook: Online Book Publishing For Wannabe Authors
• Twitterel.com: Find People with Similar Interests on Twitter
• TheSixtyOne : Discover Great Tunes Before Everyone Else
• Taltopia: Community for Artists, Fans & Casting Directors

You can browse the petitions by category, view popular petitions, read and sign the petitions on issues important to you, or create your own petition and start collecting signatures.

How to create and publish your own petitions:

1. Click “Start a petition” on top”. No sign up needed.
2. Enter petition’s title, intended target, petition statement (request) and number of signatures you want to collect. Select to validate signature email addresses to make sure that collected signatures are from real people
3. Your petition is published and hosted on the site. You can share your petition page on the web, send to people by email and watch the number of signatures collected in real time
4. When the number of signatures reach a certain number (depending on the nature of your request) or your own set goal, you then send the petition to the intended target (government body, corporation etc.) and wait for response

Anyone can sign the petition on the petition page without registration. The harder you promote your petition page the more signatures you will collect and get attention to the issue.

Features:

• Free, easy to use platform for creating and signing petitions online.
• More than 151,000 published petitions and 19 million collected signatures.
• Create petitions in different categories: Civil & Human Rights, Economy & Business, Entertainment & Media and others.
• All the tracking and signature validation is handled by the service.
• Download popular petition form templates.
• Discuss petitions on forums.
• Create your own petition and start collecting signatures.

Check out PetitionSpot @ www.petitionspot.com

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• WeSeed: Learn The Stock Market For Free Online
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• TheSixtyOne : Discover Great Tunes Before Everyone Else

In many cases staying with locals is much better than staying at a hotel because the locals know better which places to visit and can tell you more about the history and local customs of their city or town.

Site members (called CouchSurfers) share their travel experiences on the site, are open to meeting people from different cultures and usually speak multiple languages, including English.

Currently site has more than 1 million members, with 2000 new members signing up daily. Register to message members in host cities, join and create groups, meet fellow travelers, find out about events and more.

Features:

• Stay with locals almost anywhere worldwide.
• Connects travelers and locals in 56, 858 cities in  231 countries.
• More than 1 million registered members.
• Meet people in cities you are planning to visit.
• Find a place to stay or someone to show you around the city.
• Register to browse members by countries, send messages, view photos, join groups, events and more.
• Site available in all major European languages and also in Chinese and Japanese.

Check out CouchSurfing @ www.couchsurfing.com

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• SeeYourHotel: Find A Hotel Close To Any Address
• Roomorama: Marketplace For Short-Term Rentals
• iStopOver: Affordable Short Term Rentals From Owners
• HotelDiscovery: Check Hotel Room Availability Worldwide
• HotelCalculator: Compare Hotel Prices on Multiple Travel Sites

User create profiles pages and upload their video and image efforts. The uploaded media is judged by site members through a Digg style Fame and Shame voting system. The best works have the chance to enter placement on Taltopia’s Wall Of Fame or even get featured on the homepage.

Artists can apply to casting calls or auditions within their local zip code and take part in contests sponsored by companies or site’s users. Site has it own currency called Famebucks, which can be earned through increased activity on the site or bought through Paypal, which is used by members to self promote or support other artists.

Features:

• Online community that connects aspiring artists (actors, comedians, models etc) with their fans and entertainment industry professionals (casting directors, media companies).
• The site has more than 100,000 registered members to this date.
• Artists create profile pages, upload their own media efforts (pictures, videos) and are judged by the community by a digg style Fame and Shame voting system.
• Artists can enter contests, get their works featured in the Hall of Fame or apply to local casting calls and audition within their zip codes.
• The site is free, premium paid account with additional features is also available.

Check out Taltopia @ www.taltopia.com

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• WorldSings: Discover New Artists & Rate Indie Songs
• ZooToo: Social Networking For Pet Owners
• Wrapr: Cool Panoramic Image Viewer
• WEbook: Online Book Publishing For Wannabe Authors
• ViewAt: Create Panoramic Images

Language learning methodology

An interactive language course consists of units. You can master units through a ste-by-step guided course or by picking them from a Catalogue. Each unit is basically a topic like “In a restaurant” or “Personal pronouns”. It includes picture based vocabulary for the topic, reading comprehension practice, writing short text and letting native speakers correct it, chatting with a native speaker on the topic, and the final exam.

Community

On your homepage, you can see native speakers of the language you are learning, view their online status, add them as friends or start chatting with them using the busuu live messenger. Each member has a ranking, which is based on the learning performance and the number of posts corrected of other users.

Most of the material on the site is available for free through a Basic membership, which includes most the learning materials. Premium paid membership gives you addional features like an audio for 3000 key phrases, listening comprehension and grammar exercises, and the ability to download the learning materials in PDF transcript or as a podcast.

Features:

• Learn languages (English, Frech, Spanish, German) through interactive fun materials
• Communicate with native speakers to help with your exercises and improve your  speaking skills
• Increase your member ranking by improving learning performance and correcting posts of other users
• Basic membership is free, includes most of learning materials on the site
• Premium paid memberhip gives additional features like an audio for 3000 key phrases, listening and grammar comprehension exercises, and the ability to download the learning materials in PDF transcript or as a podcast.
• Similar sites: MangoLanguages and LiveMocha.

Check out Busuu @ www.busuu.com

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• Popling: Learn Languages Online The Easy Way
• Phrases: Search for Idiom Phrases & Get Meanings
• MangoLanguages : Online Language Tutor
• ListenAndWrite: Online Audio Dictation
• Lingro : Translate Words on any Web Page

To use it, first of all you log in into the service with your Twitter account and then add your keywords into your Twitterel account.

Twitterel from then will keep following all Twitter conversations for the defined keywords and list you all those tweets that contain any of your defined keywords.

You can now choose to follow the people writing those tweets, resulting in a larger community and more specific conversations.

Twitterel is a free service that uses your existing twitter account to work.

Check out Twitterel @ www.twitterel.com (Contributed by Kinshuk Sunil from kinshuksunil.com)

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• Yammer – A Twitter For Businesses and Enterprises
• wwwitter: See Twitter Discussions For Any Webpage
• WeFollow: User Powered Twitter Directory
• WEbook: Online Book Publishing For Wannabe Authors
• Vanilla: Fast & Free Forum Hosting

According to the feedback, you could further refine your work and improve it. Finally, if you get great reviews and your project gets voted as one of the best then WEbook will publish your work in both print and electronic form.

As it mentions on its site – Be a part of the “WE” in “WEbook.” Achieve Your Lifelong Goal of Publishing A Book, with Plenty of Time to Revel in It. So go ahead and sign up if you think your writing needs attention.

Check out WEbook@www.webook.com [ via LifeHacker] ( Contributed by Abhijeet from Jeet Blog )

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• Blippr: Discuss & Discover Cool Books, Games, Music and Movies
• Zoomii : Virtual Bookstore for Amazon Books
• WriteRhymes : Find Word Rhymes
• Writer : Distraction-free Internet Typewriter
• WriteBoard: A Collaborative Text Editor

It has a nice user interface where on the left hand side it shows a live social graph of what your Kiobo friends and other users are browsing, under various tags and on the right column it has got your customized tag cloud and a list of your kiobo friends.

If you click on a particular tag, it displays the various websites which other users are browsing and recommends you the sites of your interest based on your browsing history. It also lets you link it to your social networking accounts like Facebook.

It also claims to have some good privacy controls and you can limit the sharing of your browsing history. Overall a nice tool for those who love to surf the web together.

Have a look a Kiobo video tour below

Check out Kiobo @www.kiobo.com ( Contributed by Abhijeet from Jeet Blog )

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• SueEasy: Join a Class Action Lawsuit Against Corporates
• Yedda : Ask Questions. Get Answers.
• Yahoo Answers: Biggest Q&A Community on The Web
• Wis.dm: Ask Fun Questions and Get Quick Answers
• WIKAY: See How Any Website Can Access Your Browsing History

So if you’re having problem with one or the other corporate entity, try searching for it on SueEasy and see if you can find anyone else in a similar situation. Then you can join others for a class action lawsuit.

Features:

• File a complaint and grievances against corporate companies online.
• Find people in similar situation, join them and get help from Class Actions lawyers.
• Search and browse complaints submitted by other users.
• Available only within US.

Check out SueEasy @ www.sueeasy.com

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• Yahoo Answers: Biggest Q&A Community on The Web
• Kiobo: A Nice Tool to Share and Discover Cool Websites
• GetSatisfaction: Universal Tech Support
• FixYa : Fix Your Gadgets Online
• Customer Service Scoreboard For Top Companies

You can also connect your Facebook, Twitter or Friendfeed profile with your blipstream. And through your friend’s blipstreams you can discover new music and movies and check if they have given positive reviews about it.

Features

• Discover new movies, games and music
• Give them 160 character reviews (blips)
• Create wishlist of media you want to get and tag it
• Connect your social media profiles with your blipstream account

Check out Blippr @ www.blippr.com ( Contributed by Abhijeet Mukherjee from Jeet Blog )

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• WEbook: Online Book Publishing For Wannabe Authors
• ThisOneNext: Tells You What Book, CD or DVD To Get Next
• TheSixtyOne : Discover Great Tunes Before Everyone Else
• Tastekid: Get Recommendation For Movies, Music & Books
• Sidereel: Watch TV Shows and Movies Online

Features:

• Search and find lyrics to your favorite songs.
• Get lyrics to over 500.000 songs.
• Also see related YouTube videos, MP3 download links and CD covers.
• Contribute by submitting new lyrics or correct the existing ones.
• Print out lyrics and CD covers.
• No sign-up or registration needed.

Check out LyricsFly @ www.lyricsfly.com

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• MP3Realm: Find MP3s & Llisten Online
• Yahoo! Media Player: Embedable MP3 Player
• WuZAM : MP3 Search Engine
• WorryAboutYou: Find, Listen and Download Songs you Like
• Woonz : Find, Play and Download Music Tracks

Features:

• Online karaoke contests.
• Record and share as many songs as you like.
• Optionally add video recordings.
• Over 15.000 karaoke songs to choose from.
• Sarch songs by genre, language, type etc.
• Upload the song from another source in .kar format.
• Listen to recordings by other users, vote on their performance and leave comments.
• Check out most popular, with highest nr. of votes, most searched, and highest rated.
• Embed your recordings onto your blog or social netwroking profile (i.e. Myspace)

Check out sample RedKaraoke recording

Seven seconds – ¡Vota por mi grabación!

Go to RedKaraoke @ www.redkaraoke.com

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• KaraokeParty: Online Karaoke in your Browser
• WorryAboutYou: Find, Listen and Download Songs you Like
• TheSixtyOne : Discover Great Tunes Before Everyone Else
• Tape.tv : Non-Stop High Quality Music Videos
• StereoMood: Plays Music According To Your Mood

So if you’re looking for some cool undiscovered music tracks TheSixtyOne is the right place. You can either start from the front page and get on the hottest items straight away or browse down to songs from your favorite genre. Genres include Alternative, Blues, Classical, Dance, Electronic, Experimental, Folk, Hip Hop, Instrumental, Jazz, Pop, R&B, Reggae, Rock and Vocal.

Some songs can be downloaded, others can be bought. Nonetheless all of the songs can be played online. There is also something like a shuffle button that will keep on playing selected and similar songs non stop. Which basically means it can be also used like a radio. Nice feature.

Check out TheSixtyOne @ www.thesixtyone.com

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• Tunerec: Free & Legal Music Streaming
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• RedKaraoke : Online Karaoke Community

Over the last year the site has become very popular and currently hosts hundreds of smaller social networking sites focused around different interests.

But the best part about Ning is that you can map your network to your own domain name. This requires some additional work but you don’t have to be a tech guru to do that.

Features:

• Create social networking website in minutes.
• Browse current networks by tags.
• Check out most popular networks
• Join networks you like.
• Put your social network under your own domain name ($4.95/month).

Go to Ning @ www.ning.com

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• Zapproved: Web based Decision Making Tool
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Additional features such as inserting characters, dialog, props, symbols, and backgrounds, colors, flipping, rotating, resizing, zooming, scene cropping, copy and pasting expressions, props, and scenes are also available. Once you’ve created your first strip, you can allow others to expand your comic strip, while leaving the original intact. On the community side, you can share your strips with others, check out strips created by other users, rate and comment on comics.

Features

• Build comic strips and invite others to add to them.
• Easy to use comic editor with lots of features.
• Share your comics with others by publishing them on Pixton.
• Embedding: Embed cartoon strips onto your blog or personal web page.
• Subscribe to Pixton RSS feeds and get latest Pixton comics delivered to your feedreader.
• Subscribe to comics by author or tag of your choice.
• Browse comics by Recent, Most Popular, Highest Rated or Random comics.

Check out Pixton @ [ www.pixton.com ]

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• ToonDoo : Online Comic Strips Creator
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• Dilbert : Create your Dilbert Comic Strips
• WittyGraphy: Online Caricature Community