There are many sites out there that track what you like. One of the most notable is the network of sites from the Robot Co-op, which include 43 Places, 43 Things, and AllConsuming. They do a great job in general, but I’ve always felt that the design of their sites are too scattered, yielding a focus that could be sharper. LibraryThing, on the other hand, is a service with a tack-sharp focus on helping bookworms keep track, review, and rate their books.

The first good thing about LibraryThing is that they’re well established. Since becoming a real business back in May, they’ve been receiving glowing reviews and a larger user base. They estimate about 3.7 million books catalogued as being on their user’s shelves.

Their site is wickedly fast, and their book search peruses through Amazon and 45 other libraries in the world (including the Library of Congress). They also provide deep information about each book, just like any good library catalogue would.

Signing up is a breeze. All you have to do is type in a username and password. They actually use the same form for signing in as an existing user and signing in as a new user! I was able to start adding books in seconds–literally.

Once you add books to your collection, you can add tags and reviews for them. Each listings page for a book contains an avalanche of information: tags, user reviews, ratings, cover images, other suggested books (based on users or tag similarity), and much more.

And, like any good reviews site, each user has a profile full of metadata, statistics, and tag clouds describing their reading habits. LibraryThing is just so full of interesting information that I could probably surf the site for days just looking at statistics! The design of the site is very utilitarian, with plenty of white space and a liquid design. It’s a breeze to switch contexts, and surf through books, authors, and other user’s collections.

Outside of their core functionality, the site offers blog widgets, mobile access to their database, and exporting your collection data. LibraryThing really has covered a lot of bases when it comes to functionality. This is definitely one site that I don’t have any complaints about.

I do have one suggestion for LibraryThing, and that is to connect their database with local libraries so that users can immediately see if a book is a available in their area. They could even be in partnership with the libraries and allow users to check out books right from LibraryThing. The logistics to get this off the ground would be immense, but, I would personally find this feature quite useful.

Four years ago, my Dad bought my Grandmother a computer. Not only has she never sent an email on it, but the only time the computer is turned on is when one of her younger visitors needs to use it. Joe Beninato, the founder of Presto, had the same problem when trying to send photos to his Mother though email. He thought it would be cool if she could receive emails and photos without having to mess with a PC, so he teamed up with HP to develop the Presto printing mailbox.

Soon the over 50 million Americans who don’t use computers or have access to the internet can have an entire email inbox set up for them. The Presto service will allow the internet savvy user to monitor the printer’s ink and paper supply from their online account, and, to prevent spam, can choose which users can send emails to the inbox. Other features include the ability to choose a larger easy-to-read font, as well as sign up to have Grandma receive puzzles, recipes, news articles and additional bundled content in her inbox. The bad news is that the printing mailbox is only one-way, so the end user will have to stick with snail-mail to respond. Knowing my Grandma, that is something she’ll enjoy anyway.

Amazingly, no internet connection is needed for the printing mailbox to work. Although the product has not yet been released, a Fortune article has the cost of the printer with additional software (making it a printing mailbox) at $150 and the online management service at $10/month or $100/year. Stay tuned to the ShoutBlog for an upcoming interview with Presto founder Joe Beninato!

Have you ever wanted to create a Wikipedia entry for yourself or a friend? We’ve probably all thought about it at some point, and maybe even acted on our impulses only to find that the Wikipedia community deletes the entries due to insignificance. Certainly, Wikipedia is not in the business of marshaling biographies for just anyone. Enter WikiBios, which aims to break down the barriers and allow everyone to have a biography for display.

WikiBios is all about telling life stories, whether you’re famous or not. In their mission statement, they state that they are

… a revolutionary project that revolves around the idea that everyone in the world, no matter who they are, has a unique and interesting story that deserves to be told. We aim to create a database of biographies for everyone in the world, as told by those who know them best.

This is indeed a lofty goal. The catch is that you can’t write your own biography–only others can write about you. The reason for this, they say, is that your friends can give better insight to your own character. This restriction means that they will need a large user base before biographies are fully fleshed out, which they currently aren’t. The pivotal action they need from their users will be for them to invite their friends, so that they can start filling in biographies.

Overall, WikiBios is an interesting idea that can be the first to usher in an element of social networking into the world of wikis. However, there just isn’t enough users right now to squash the trolls, gaming, and other ugly faces of the wiki system. Some of the “featured” biographies that are linked from the front page are empty. It might be a good idea to handpick the featured bios by hand, at least for the moment.

I’m one of the few people in the US that doesn’t own a TV. It’s been years since I’ve owned one, and, after the first few weeks, I haven’t really missed it that much. But, there are still some instances when certain media is best delivered through television. A friend of mine recently pointed me to TVU Networks, which provides streaming television through the web. All legalities aside, the service is actually bearable to watch when you’re desperate without a television.

Now, I must warn you that the service as it stands is a little on the shady side, as is their webpage. Based in Shanghai, TVU Networks aims to be the definitive Internet TV company:

TVU networks is a new global live TV service that enables TV Broadcasters and private individuals to broadcast TV channels to a global audiences over the Internet. TVU uses a new application-level multicasting technology (similar to peer-to-peer file sharing) that allows broadcast costs to be exponentially lower than those of today’s streaming technology.

The technology behind the content delivery is like BitTorrent, but with streaming content. Basically, the more peers that are watching the particular channel, the better your stream will be. Currently, they have about two dozen channels, ranging from ABC to HBO to Asian language channels. The player itself is no frills, allowing you to specify a channel, refresh a channel, or enter in some commands via a textbox (there doesn’t seem to be a manual for this, so you’re on your own).

Certainly, the legality of all this is questionable. HBO’s lawyers wouldn’t be very happy to know that someone is seeding a live stream of their content for free over the web. Nevertheless, the technology itself is impressive. On average, I saw about 12 to 15 peers, which gave a pretty consistent video quality.

As many of you know by now, I love simple services that can shave off time from my hectic workday. When I’m at a computer, I usually like using an online SMS texting service to message my friends, but most of the time, this involves going to a specific carrier’s site and sending the message there. txtDrop allows you to send to any cell phone in the US or Canada for free, regardless of their carrier.

The site itself is designed with only one thing in mind, and that is to send text messages. You simply put in your name, your friend’s number, and a message, and it will instantly send. There are similar services out there, but none that I’ve seen that are so easily usable like this. The next time you need to text someone, and don’t feel like cramping your fingers on small cell phone buttons, give txtDrop a try.

PictureCloud is squarely aimed at competing with the monolithic QuickTime VR by allowing users to easily create 3D “picture clouds.” For many businesses and sellers, PictureCloud is an inexpensive and easy way to create draggable 3D media for the web.

I got to speak with the founder of PictureCloud at the SF New Tech Meetup (which is a great event for any web tech junkie), and he showed me just how easy it is to create a PictureCloud. All anyone needs is a digital camera and a steady hand. You simply take pictures in sequence around the object of your choice, and use their drag-and-drop interface to upload all your photos at once.

After that, you can paste the code on your website, blog, forum, or eBay listing, and your visitors will have instant access to a 3D draggable interface via Flash. And, you’ll have avoided the learning curve and expense of dealing with QuickTime’s software. For any user or business that can’t hire a QuickTime graphics guru, PictureCloud is a great alternative.

In terms of hosting, PictureCloud offers free storage for one year on their site, or 3 years on a premium subscription plan. They have various levels of subscription plans which include features like multiple PictureCloud sizes and the ability to download your PictureCloud and keep it forever.

PictureCloud has the potential to appeal to many types of users, from restaurants looking to show off their new decor to internet sellers wanting to post a 3D view of their wares. I could also see creative uses for PictureCloud, like displaying a sequence of photos that are panned, rather than rotated, allowing users to scan across a large image. You could even do short animations which allow users to control the speed of the animation by dragging. PictureCloud is really just a container of photos that can be dragged in sequence. The only thing they’re missing is the ability to pan up and down, as well as left and right. For that, you’re still stuck with using QuickTime.

As a developer, I know how important it is to have the right information at my fingertips. It could mean the difference between a smooth coding session, and a frustrating one. A helpful tool is being able to refer to a cheat sheet, especially if you’ve just started using a new language. Steven Reid of TechCheatSheets aims to make finding technical cheat sheets a cinch.

The site is simplicity itself, allowing users to submit links to cheat sheets. Each entry is tagged, and can be rated by visitors. You can also keep up on the newly added cheat sheets using their RSS feed.

It’s nice to finally have a central repository for cheat sheets. I’ve found myself continuously searching for the same cheat sheets in Google, so TechCheatSheets could save me some time.

An interesting feature to add would be to allow users to collaborate on a cheat sheet. The sheets would be hosted by TechCheatSheets, and adding to the sheet would be done using a wiki type interface. Users could add elements that they think are important to the sheet, and visitors would be able to convert it to a pdf and download it.

Right now, they’re really focusing on the content, which is really the most important element of their site. If you know of a good cheat sheet, send it their way!

It seems like it’s getting easier and easier to make an equivalent of an online store. With services like Amazon Associates, MyPickList, Shopify, and BloggerKit, there’s almost no excuse for a blogger not to get in on promoting relevant items for sale, and profiting from it. Now, with the entry of RightCart, users can literally place a full service shopping cart and checkout on their site with a few lines of code.

Their screencast shows just how easy it is to setup the cart with a typical blogger account. There were only two instances of copy-and-pastes, and they’re off and running with a quick, inline, and full-featured shopping cart. The focus is on selling your own items, but, you can also sell other people’s items, which will incur a 1% commission charge to RightCart — not bad at all.

The big win with RightCart is that it allows users to buy items without leaving your page. The AJAX is slick, and visitors will barely even notice that they’ve used a 3rd party service to buy the item. That being said, there were some concerns about people making false RightCarts, and tricking visitors in giving up their credit card numbers to the wrong people. Since then, RightCart has made amends with the issue by using a unique codeword to verify that the cart is indeed served from RightCart. In the end, it really is up to the buyer to be aware of the risks.

Even though the interface for generating codes and searching for items is a bit clunky looking, RightCart has some pretty slick technology for sellers to make instant online stores. An interesting idea would be for them to take an AdWords approach (like BloggerKit) for people to sell relevant items on their blogs by automatically grabbing the items from the text context. Therefore, as soon as you create a new item for sale, it will automatically be shown on anyone’s relevant blog post. It would be like edgeio, except the listings proceed from the center out to the edge.

You can already read about PayPerPost on several blogs. Here on Mashable, on TechCrunch, and at CNET’s alpha blog. So I’m not going to give you an in-depth review about what the site does, but to give you a basic idea, they offer money to bloggers for writing good reviews about specific companies. I believe this dishonest practice is only for the most greedy and immoral blog writers out there. However, these “sponsorship” types of advertising can be seen in other forms as well.

It almost seems like you can buy pretty much anyone these days. Buy a professional athlete to tell everyone that they LOVE your sports drink. Buy a movie star to wear only your line of clothing. Sony, upon their entry into the American market, used to pay salespeople to specifically recommend their higher priced televisions. Hell, there are even cases with people permanently tattooing advertisements on their own bodies!

Journalists need to be different though; they need to uphold to an honest and, in a perfect world, unbiased code. Bloggers, who are largely not journalists by training, don’t necessarily have to follow the morals that we hope most journalists abide to. Lately a lot of bloggers have been taking advertisers on their sites. In fact, some of the blogs that I’ve linked to at the beginning of this entry, have advertisers on their sites. They have made statements that they don’t approve of PayPerPost, and will never take money to falsely write a good review of a company. While I believe this, I doubt any of them would ever write a scathing review about one of their advertisers–even if it were true.

Note: The writers of the ShoutBlog will never publish editorial content that has been shaped by money received from any outside influence. So don’t even ask!