As with any local review site the power is in the network and although it may differ from city to city, I found that Yelp is widely used in my area. I found it easy to search for local reviews and write my own, and so far have had a great experience.

Several friends and I use this service for an online forum to keep in touch and share ideas, and so far it has worked great. True, it is very simple, but it is free and works well for what we do. The handy thing about Google Groups is none of our members ever actually go to the forum site--all of our interaction is carried on through email. Whenever a member emails to the associated group email, it emails everyone else, and when they reply to that email it associates it with the appropriate discussion and sends an email to everyone in reply. Because emails are constantly being sent to everyone, it keeps everyone active in the forum and no one ever has to leave their email to participate. So far I've had no complaints and highly recommend it in a small group setting.

Yes, I confess, I am extremely cheap. When Jott was initially released I used it religiously and even had a quick dial on my phone for it. It was extremely useful, especially when I was on the road and wanted to send a quick email note to myself. However, when they added a fee for the emailing service I stopped using it. Yes, I'm cheap, but thought it would've been useful for them to include optional advertising in the email or something along those lines to avoid fees. All in all, it was a useful service and worked well, but at the time for me wasn't worth paying for.

I use this service occassionally to convert .docs to .pdf. The PrimoPDF service is free and works well most of the time. Occassionally, I get an error during conversion, but overall it's worked well and you can't beat free.

I installed Syncplicity the other day in hopes of having it replace the little 500MB removable drive I carry between work and home. I found it easy to install and set up my account, and easy to setup the folders I wanted to backup and sync for home and work. As of now it's working like a charm practically making my removable drive obsolete. Now I'm only wishing the monthly fee was a little less so I could upgrade to 50GB and replace Mozy for my media backup. All in all, a useful and simple tool.

I've always enjoyed reading, but the great thing about GoodReads is how it adds to the experience. Now when I'm finished with a book I can mark that it's completed and I write a review, which is then shared with my GoodReads friends. They in turn can comment on my review and a discuss may ensue if they've read it themselves. The other great thing about GoodReads is often my "friends" and I end up reading each others' books. With GoodReads I can follow what my friends are reading, and it also provided a great way to keep a history of what I've read.

Of all the websites I visit and use Wikipedia is by far the most valuable. One night I had a dream, actually a nightmare, that Wikipedia went under due to lack of donations. It was catastrophic. I honestly don't know what I'd do with myself. Some complain about the lack of accuracy, but from what I've read, the information seems to be accurate--and up to date. It is the speed that Wikipedia is updated that boggles my mind. Go to a Wikipedia page the same day that something is released about it in the news, and you'll most likely see it already updated. One aspect of Wikipedia I particularly enjoy is how it has become an encyclopedia for popular culture--which would most likely not exist in a formal encyclopedia.

I recently used MailChimp in a political campaign and found it incredibly useful and easy to use for simple emails. What I also enjoyed about MailChimp was how fun it was to use and their constant innovation, always adding new features and updates. The incredible things they do with email tracking and deep analysis of email drafts are amazing. I also found the pricing competitive. I'd say the main drawback to MailChimp is their email editor, which I found difficult to use at times. When I was doing simple emails it was great, however, for more involved emails with lots of graphics and HTML formatting it became difficult at times. Other than the formatter I'd recommend MailChimp.

My feelings about Mozy are mixed. The first couple times I tried to use it on my work computers it never backed up anything, which was a problem, of course. I'm not sure if that was user error or an compatability with my computer or OS. A year later I was looking for a good online backup service to backup my home photos and videos. I tried Mozy again at home, and although it took forever to backup the initial content (20 GB), it works like a charm now. About $5 a month and keeps our photos and video safe--on the fly.

I've used Google Analytics on several different sites and recommend it all around. It's feature rich and best of all -- free! I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to track website statistics. Works great for personal blogs, too.

I've been Diigo extensively for the last year and would highly recommend it. My favorite part of Diigo is that I can easily save highlighted text and the highlight remains when I return to the web page. It also stores the highlighted text in my Diigo account, which is handy in case the web page goes down and I need to access the information. In addition, Diigo allows me to tag my book marks and include sticky notes on web pages. Another great thing about Diigo is you can connect with friends and share each other bookmarks, highlights, and stick notes. Diigo works best in Firefox, because there is an "add-on" for it. Unfortunately, I only use Chrome now but Diigo's made up for that with a "Diigolet" that gets you most of the way there. In summary, Diigo is an invaluable tool for anyone that reads extensively on the web and wants to save and organize online content.