Cool Websites

I've been seeing a lot of really cool websites and pages lately, and I'm going to start keeping a little bit of a list of them here. (In fact, I love lists, especially categorized and sub-categorized lists, which is, I suppose, why I got bit by the DMOZ bug.)

Cool Site #1 Today - Delocator.net is a searchable database of coffee houses and cafes that are NOT owned by a corporate entity. (i.e. Starbucks). They present a wonderful article about how vital cafes have been to society in terms of stimulating thought and discussion throughout history, and make a compelling case that the massive number of corporate-owned coffee houses are threatening the livelihood of these smaller, individually owned coffee houses. This is truly the web as it was meant to be.

Cool Site #2 - Wikipedia's List of Reference Tables is a tremendous resource and a heck of a lot of fun. I spent a couple of hours yesterday just reading through the various television show and movie lists here. And there's a lot more available here than just pop entertainment--there are lists of all kinds of stuff like measurements and and glossaries and trivia and so on.

Cool Site #3 - Cash Keywords is a blog that is more or less about Adsense type advertising and the earning potential that's available to content publishers online right now. If you want to stay up to date on Adsense's policies and get tips on how to maximize your earnings with Adsense, then this is good reading.

Cool Site #4 - Fantomaster has published a list of search engine blogs. There are over 100 blogs about search engine marketing listed here, as if the dozen or so that I already have bookmarked aren't enough already.

Cool Site #5 - Speaking of search engine marketing blogs, the best search engine optimization blog I know of is run by Aaron Wall. His article today about clever ways to get links is funny, and if you read it closely, it's also full of useful advice. Some of what he's saying is a little bit "between the lines", but if you pay close attention, it's dynamite.

Cool Site #6 - I came across a subscription based service that has over 6 million images available for webmasters and anyone else the other day. It's called Clipart.com. This is a handy and inexpensive resource for just about any webmaster. Again, highly recommended.

Cool Site #7 - Speaking of links, one way to get them is to make articles available to other webmasters through sites like Ezine Articles. I have 7 articles published there now. If you come across any of them, be sure to rank them highly for me.

Cool Site #8 - If you don't like your current Blogger template, take a look at Blogger Templates. There are some truly brilliant designs here, including blog templates that duplicate the look and feel of Yahoo and Google.

Cool Site #9 - I might have mentioned this site before, but in case I haven't, Cockeyed.com is a hell of a lot of fun.

Cool Site #10 - Another fun site is Maddox's obnoxious and hilarious series of rants, the best page in the universe. Probably the funniest website I've ever seen, and also one of the most popular sites on the web, as near as I can tell.

Those 10 sites should keep anyone busy for quite a while. And before I stop writing today, I'd like to leave you with a thought from the Dude. "The Dude abides."