Rev2.org

This will be of particular interest to blog and media site owners. Anyone who has either of those kinds of sites will understand that importance of networking with (or keeping track of) sites that are on a similar subject line.

SimilarSites.com (not to be confused with SimilarSites.net, which I find to be useless) lets you search for a domain name and find sites with similar keywords/phrases in their makeup so you can easily find websites that are similar to the one you’re own (or the one you’re using as your search).

The site is free and pretty useful for a specific niche of Web user. Unlike other sites along a similar vein like similicio.us (hit and miss at best) and TagOMatic (which rarely returns anything useful), SimilarSites.com actually seems to work. It replaces the old, reliable, but questionable results of a pure Google search with a list of almost entirely useful returns.

The site is free to use and has a nice little browser plug-in for Firefox and IE to make searching even easier. One thing I think that SimilarSites.com is missing is the ability to search for similar articles or site sections, since the search always boils down to just the domain.

Of course, SimilarSites.com is focused on finding like domains, but I feel the site would be much more useful if I could find related focuses amongst very large sites. If, for instance, I wanted to find other hardware reviews like I peruse at PCmag.com (pcmag.com/category2/) from different sites around the Web, SimilarSites.com is of no help.

For what it’s made for, though, I have yet to find a better way to find like-minded websites than with SimilarSites.com. There are plenty of hopefuls out there that try to do the same thing, but so far none are better.

It’s free to use and has been around since 2007, so it’s nto a fly-by-night newbie or from a questionable background. The plugin is also nifty since it takes the typing (or cut-and-pasting) out of the search, allowing you to just click the button on your browser to immediately SimilarSites.com websites related to the one you’re on.

Worth a try, at least, and definitely useful to the researchers, marketers, and bloggers out there.

Alright, you may not be making a physical prototype of the next Tesla Roadster or NASA space station, but your project is just as important to you as those were to their creators. Right? Prototyping apps is not easy, though, and can often involve countless hours of labor just to make something visual for a 15 minute presentation.

JustProto.com hopes to step in to make the process much easier. This is a boon for those of us who might understand what “return function ($y) use ($x)” means, but have no idea how to create a decent graphic in Fireworks or Photoshop.

JustProto is an online app that is similar to project management applications, but aims towards making prototype mockups and current status displays rather than telling team members what to do or where to be.

Significant amounts of information can be plugged into JustProto and will come out the other end as a nicely-built representation of where you are, where you hope(d) to be, and so forth.

The app is designed for network and desktop application development. Elements and their parameters can be built online through the site (or uploaded as data files) and immediate previews can be done using the site template or graphical layout you’ve already built (or using one of their built-ins).

In fact, JustProto allows you to build the whole app right on their site. It can be done as a mockup, as a real-time current version, or as a final solution test. Mostly, however, it will likely be useful as a prototype test and mockup check.

Very large projects and teams might find JustProto useful for building the app from start-to-finish online, allowing all involved to see the progress, see how they’re elements are fitting, and make changes or suggestions more easily and interactively.

Signup and trial is free, so it’s worth finding out if this app will work for you. Prices start at $19/month for a standard account and work up to $99/month for unlimited accounts, all scaled by the size of the project itself (collaborators, disk usage). The totally-free plan allows 1 project and 1 person to use it and is meant as a trial balloon.

While Wolfram Alpha might be the revolution in search for scientific research, Socrata.com might be the revolution in search for publicly-owned data.

The site combines data sets from over 200 public sources around the nation, aggregating them into one site and usable format. While most sites that deal in public data sources are unwieldy, sometimes broken, and often impossible to navigate, Socrata is simple.

It works similar to a standard search engine using cloud computing in a way similar to many apps made for Twitter or Facebook data collection. This makes it fast and accurate.

The information is presented in such a way that it’s useful to those looking for it. Instead of the usual links to PDF or (worse) Word DOCs, the results are in clear HTML that is nicely rendered from the original source. It’s similar to Google Docs, though probably not as powerful.

On top of that, the site enables users to sign up and network with other researchers to share found data and information. Custom views of single data sets can be made with narrowing filters. So a search of the 2000 census data, for instance, might be narrowed by ZIP code or state.

Personalized views and fields of research data like this can be saved and shared with the person’s social network, if they wish, adding to the usefulness of the site overall.

Socrata, Inc. is based in Seattle, Washington and it’s CEO, Kevin Merritt, touts the site as a new phase of full disclosure and openness in government. “We are providing publicly available data in an interactive, social format that enables citizens, for the first time, to discover, read, manipulate and share publicly available data with a tool we all have – a Web browser,” he says.

The site itself is very easy to understand and moves relatively quickly during searches and when adding filters to narrow results. The information available is interesting and current and mostly comes from government, university, and other public sources.

One of the best parts is Socrata’s ability to pull pure data (numbers, mostly, and charts) from large research files so that if you’re looking just for specific numbers, you don’t have to download the entire 30mb PDF file just to find what’s contained in three paragraphs of one page of it.

Hopefully, Socrata will continue to grow and ad more sources for information and stay free for public use.

The much-buzzed Sirius XM iPhone app received a critical bitch slap from geek-chic basement bloggers and high-tech webzines when it was made available to the public last week.

The complaints included the fact that much of the premium branded content, like Howard Stern and NFL Play-by-Play, isn’t available for streaming through the app. Additionally, there are already a bunch of music apps that let you listen to a D.I.Y playlist sans fees. (While the app itself is free, Sirius XM charges $12.95 a month for its basic services, plus another $3 a month to stream online.)

My counter argument to refute both of these reactionary criticisms – clearly penned by writers who don’t listen to Sirius XM – is that you still get the best stations with the app.

Let’s start with the Virus, which is branded as an extreme talk radio channel and includes shock jock stalwarts Opie & Anthony, as well as the underappreciated Ron & Fez. While Stern prefers to talk about how he’s revolutionized the medium and how his listeners can never bed the D-list skanks he brings on the show, O&A combine hilarious obscenity-littered rants with cutting insights. Possibly even more entertaining is their regular practice of mocking the traditional FM morning zoo format. No personalities make the huge entertainment rift between terrestrial and satellite radio as clear as these Long Island wiseacres.

Meanwhile, Ron & Fez boasts a loyal army of odd listeners and callers that nicely complements the O&A train wreck. Former stand-up comic and professional cokehead Ron Bennington is the best interviewer I’ve ever heard on any medium, and Fez Whately is a neurotic puppy dog who likes to wear women’s clothing.

And that’s the Virus channel alone. Guilty please music channels include Lithium’s eclectic ‘90s playlist, a unique movie score station in Cinemagic, and you can also get the sports scores you’re looking at with ESPN and Fox Sports channels. Stations are up in playing in about three seconds, and the signal quality is better than expected.

The Sirius XM iPhone app may not perform its primary duty: Attract new listeners/iPhone users to the satellite radio platform. But it will perform an important function in any recession: Retention marketing. If I can listen to Opie and Anthony’s third-chair comedian Jim Norton wax philosophically on tranny love and golden showers secretly from the workplace, then I’ve got one more reason to keep paying my monthly fees.

Remember the print-your-own biz card kits at Office Max that used MS Word templates to make business cards you could print on your printer? Then came VistaPrint with their online business card designer software. Now there’s Business Card Star, which mixes the two ideas together.

To nutshell it, Business Card Star is a Web-based biz card designer similar to VistaPrint, but instead of being stuck with their system and having to use them as your exclusive printer for your card designs, you can download the finished product as a PDF to your system and print them yourself.

For true professionals, of course, printing your own isn’t really an option. Unless, of course, looking cheap is part of your whole persona. They might work in a pinch, though, when your cards haven’t come back from the printers yet.

They’re also useful for a lot of other stuff. Business cards are a great, cheap, and quick way to advertise events, invite people to parties, and even join the new wave of soccer moms who’re making “play dates” with biz cards.

Of course, if you do want professional cards, Business Card Star can do that too. They offer professional card printing through their site for reasonable prices. Not as cheap as VistaPrint, but these are generally better quality. 500 glossies will run $29.95 with silk lamination an option too. 2-sided cards are only about $5 more.

The card designer itself is pretty slick and easy to understand. It’s a nicely-done WYSIWYG editor based on a basic design template for the card. It’s similar to the systems used by other online card designers.

Creating an account and building cards is free and you can save your card projects so you can download them again, order prints, modify them, etc.

Business Card Star is a nice site and a good step up from VistaPrint. The designs are generally more modern and aimed at the tech and creative sectors with less emphasis on the stock photography and flat designs and more on simple, graphic looks.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter @rev2 and @lapp and have fun!

Launching a start-up in today’s dot-com graveyard requires two must-have conditions to even get funding: You need to align with one of the few industries able to thrive during a recession, and you need instant (Wall) Street cred.

Hara.com has both of these. First, it’s in the green space, focusing on carbon limits and other Mother Earth dieting tips espoused by President Obama. And second, one of Hara’s partners is…Former Vice President Al Gore. Who else, right? Odds are, one way or another, Hara employees will be rubbing shoulders with Secret Service agents.

So what exactly does Hara do? Its software promises potential clients everything from improving operational efficiency to elevating brand value, and of course, optimizing your resources consumption. Specifically, the company focuses on what it calls “organizational metabolism,” green parlance for making sure the company men’s room toilets don’t run.

Clients already include Coca-Cola and the City of Palo Alto, California, the latter of which aims to cut greenhouse gas consumption by 15 percent.

Fueled by $6 million in funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), Hara’s software is poised to save Corporate America – and the environment. That is, if only the company can convince prospects to spend its dwindling capital resources on unproven technology from a brand-spanking new company.

Maybe Hara should get Captain Planet to invest, too.