Once again BusinessWeek has come up with List of Best Entities on Web, with voting started today on BusinessWeek Best of the Web'08 till Sept. 12, this time the ace news portal has come up with some new additions such as Best new comer entry and the famous - The Most Influential People on the Web. While in new comers the entries are - Freindfeed, Summize, GigaPan, Microsoft WorldWide Telescope and WaterCooler and in Blogs categories, the entries are more or less the same, yes you guess right its -TechCrunch, Scobleizer the two same 'old' brand new blogs along with http://gothamist.com, Seth's Blog and http://paul.kedrosky.com. Apart from above categories BusinessWeek do have other 23 categories too namely - Tech News, Business News, Social Networking, Sports, Real Estate and Blogging tools etc. with 5 nominees in each categories where users along with voting their favorites among the nominees can also submit their own choice of website in respective categories with few lines on why they like that website or blog. While browsing th nominees I found the redundancy in th nominees that has been around for quite a long time, the question is why not bring in the new and deserving ones, for e.g. ...

Face
YourManga
.com is new avatar based site that allows 
users 
to 
create 
Avatars for 
themselves 
for 
free in an interactive way where users can choose different styles, put up different things to develop a virtual face to be used on varieties of use such as your IMs, social network profiles or your blog etc. Moreover, FaceYourManga.com also allows to download and print a high resolution version of Avatars you create along with feature to print the image on various surfaces turning your creation into an original furniture article for your home and can buy those printed products via Paypal. Face Your Manga is a product brought by Pixelheads and at moment is providing users to create Avatars and buy the image immediately as digital file download. It also seems that website is planning come with some sort of 'community' feature on faceyourmanga.com.

With Olympics games at Beijing just start off there are plenty of sources online where they are providing really good info and live footage, updates of every sports going to held in Beijing, China. Lets take a brief snapshots of few good and big players keeping tab on this summer games at Beijing. CCTV.com: The official Internet and Mobile broadcaster of Olympics 2008, is providing Beijing events' Live videos, Photos and News updates through it International version (English) here - http://intl.2008.cctv.com. Olympics enthusiast can also get information of flights, tickets, schedules and Hotel reservations along with putting tab on the event through video reports. Noticeably CCTV is China's largest TV network and providing complete content of all of the things that have something to do with Beijing Olympics 2008 and complete portal on the the event at Beijing. MSN/ NBCOlympics NBCOlympics.com is MSN's 2008 summer Olympics website, the website serves 24x7 Olympics module complete with the latest news, live medal counts, statistics and videos, though it more for US audience with news, videos exclusive for US Atheletes and sports persons there at Beijing. Mobile version - http://mobile.nbcolympics.com YouTube Channel - Beijing 2008 The YouTube Beijing 2008 is the Official IOC Content on YouTube provided ...

Rediff followed by its previous fare search utility service for Air Tickets and Train Tickets, Rediff.com, India’s one of leading online portal, today announced the launch of Rediff Bus FareSearch service. Noticeably Rediff is working gradually to expand its Rediff FareSearch to all the off-shoots of Transport/ Travel domains. Rediff Bus FareSearch allows the users to search for buses plying between states and get detailed schedules, pick up points, check availability and book seats for over 1000 destinations in India. The new search service currently covers over 20000 buses including both private and state transport buses for 7 Indian states - Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. The Rediff Bus FareSearch service also allows users to get comparative view of the trains available for the chosen bus route helping users to plan their travel more efficiently. The service is designed like a simple search engine utility which does not requires any registration process, Users can classify their search based on the boarding location and also select the type of Bus which includes A/C, Non A/C, seating or sleeper class. Once the user has finalized the appropriate bus they can book the tickets either through travel agents ...

New online service Resnooze let you remind things and even remind you to visit URLs on user defined frequency which can than be send to your email. One can set multiple reminders and can customize the settings for it. Bloggers on other hand can get returning visitors (non-RSS) by embedding link (or image button) of - in their blogs or websites to get periodical reminder in their visitors mailbox. Being a user of this service, one can change the reminder's title, add a note, control frequency, the day in the week or in the month, and the exact time of the reminder. The service is pretty helpful to bloggers/ users in other sense that - when you see a website which is yet to be released or under construction or say not in public beta and you want to see and review it first for example SneakCast which is apparently got shut down before and now its in line of its relaunch, you can set a URL reminder say - weekly to get reminder of whether it is launched yet or not.

Mapunity an Indian based GIS/ MIS and Mobile based technology company has brought a 'real time' traffic details in form of Maps (optimal directions, routes, location tracking of buses and trains) and this live traffic information service is for four cities - Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune. Thanks XploreDotNet. Mapunity has led the development of Urban Transport Information Systems for the above cities via different inputs namely teledensity data from Airtel's mobile telecom tower network, video images from police cameras, location-tracking of buses and taxis to create real-time knowledge of traffic conditions in cities. These are then made widely available through Airtel's mobile telecom network to city residents, accessible on web and mobile both. As per Mapunity the development would be stretching further, as website describe: Mapunity is also building a free mobile-based navigation system that will help people access data from its traffic information systems on their phones. A few other related applications have also been developed. These include a carpool partner-matching program for regular commutes and a vehicle tracking application for taxi and bus operators. Mapunity is also building administration platforms for transport management authorities in different functions. Moreover, the service also have traits of networking for people such as ...

Wired has prepared a tool to play with your famous quotient on web, i.e. how famous are you on Internet. Wired Celeberity Meter checks URLs on web and scores internet fame based on - backlinks, friends across social networks (Twitter and MySpace for now), WIRED will be adding more social networks gradually in this Celebrity Tool Project to come up with full fledged tool. The Tool/ Project by WIRED is work which has been already initiated at Google Social Graph where you will find similar Example applications although there are no such rating/ number/ meter thing as WIRED is trying to do. Traackr is also one such website that let you find out - how famous are you on 'Web', the social graph is fast catching up to poise or untangle the social connectivity on web.

A new entrant in social networking space of India, quite good in usability and features to lure audience, this is one social network I would IndiaHangout.com in category - "Secondary Social networks" likewise to third World Countries in political scenario, the primaries would obviously be - Orkut, Facebook, BigAdda in Indian social networking arena. The community portal provide plenty of features like other portal of similar category do, along with features such as radio, free SMS, chat rooms similar to that of Yahoo messenger, applications such as games, videos, polls and events. The portal is convincing enough and few tweaks can bring it in line with what Hikut and Friendster doing in India. In my opinion advertisements is too early for IndiaHangout.com, one should learn from Orkut, inspite of being a google's offshoot, the social network in India started Adsense advertisements a year later before getting buzzword in crowd. The advertisements obviously distract users from being observed by users/ visitors sometime and could even annoy visitors. BPOVoice is one social network exclusively for Indian BPO aka call center employees, the portal is just opened this month for public release. The founder of portal is from BPO background himself and tried to put the ...

If you are visiting any city in India and you are a blogger, you can now find accommodation for free to stay and the place would be another blogger's home. This is a sort of barter exchange being propagated by Indian website - ExtaBed.in. At ExtraBed.in, bloggers are being asked to participate in this Blogger exchange program where bloggers offer extra bed to a fellow blogger or who visits blogger's city. And in return, when you travel to his/her city, you have a place to stay. This seems to be out of track and at the same time a way to bind and create a blogger's network 'offline'. If you want to host a blogger you can go to ExtraBed.in select the city you live in and add your contact details and If you are planning for a trip out of your city than find the the state name, click on it and find out the city and get in touch with bloggers who welcome other bloggers as their guests. Also going ahead in this offline blogging network, the website ask bloggers to treat fellow bloggers visiting their city with pleasant hospitality along with a 'Gift' and a photo snap of both host ...

Last Week ChannelMine.tv, venture of TinselVision had launched to serve Hindi movies fans across the globe, it is a community portal with access to the films, television shows and videos along with letting its users to upload and share videos, chat with friends on the network, read blogs about upcoming films and their stars and play Bollywood related games. ChannelMine, a free online networking service fully integrated with its umbrella service TinselVision, combines the web's latest widgets and gadgets with premium free, interactive content, contests and games for a global community of Bollywood fans and Indian entertainment enthusiasts. Viewers can watch programmes on the portal via IPTV to PCs, laptops, TVs and mobile devices in India and other countries such as the US, UK, Canada and across the globe at their mother portal at www.Tinselvision.Com. TinselVision had also tied up with major film studios of Indian cinema arena for bring more Bollywood related content such as - Yash Raj Films, Shemaroo Movies and UTV as well as Zee TV, Star TV, Zoom TV, Ultra and B4U Networks. Source - PTI India

Kindo.com which basically deal with making your family tree and make network with rest of your family tree members has launched its Kindo Hindi version earlier this week and its believed to be first social network connecting families from India in 'Hindi'. The website let users build their own free family tree online, share it with the rest of family and learn more about who they are, their ancestors and family history. Kindo also has other features for families and genealogist that makes the networking site the meeting place for generations. Although I wouldn't call it a complete Hindi version reason being - as the whole websites do have Hindi texts all over but when users type in information, let say when register his/ her name the text that appear are in English anyway. Nevertheless the website dealing in making family tree and interacting with members in social networking way has come up with Hindi as language to be used by Indian users in their interface. Kindo also have the website in 16 other languages to target different countries. The website in true sense doesn't convince to be a pure social networking portal, eventhough it has some traits of being community driven portal but ...

Microsoft India has launched a community cum networking website WindowsandMe.com in order to improve and raise the level of experience of consumer with their PCs having Windows as OS. The site talk about how to make most of their PC experience with Windows. The website is still under construction and in Beta phase and more features and functionalities will be added as per feedback from users and from set of selected people who are subject matter experts on Windows, Amit Agarwal Pro Blogger of Digital Inspiration(labnol.org) is one of those few. The website seems to be one of the effort to sustain the public support for Windows Vista more than any other Microsoft's Windows Products. Windows Vista has been made the vital part of website to realize the consumers the caliber of same in a way of proving tips, tweaks, tutorial, Knowledge part and experts advice. The website runs on core part of exploring, discovering, sharing each others knowledge on Windows and end up with solution or improvisation of using Windows PCs along with advices, 'how tos' and tips from expert panel. As a signed up user one can get latest news, updates and tips of Windows knowledge base and throw queries ...

AppApeal.com has created web 2.0 Mosaic i.e. an art in form of world map filled with small pieces of images, which in this case are logos of leading web 2.0 websites. This World Web 2.0 Mosaic is created from 1001 web 2.0 company logos which when clicked take you to the related website. The logos will appear in full-size when you hover over the mosaic. This art of AppApeal has reminded me of Million Dollar Page that had created a lot of buzz, couple of years back but here in this case its free but no inclusion request or so. One things I found annoyed in AppApeal's Mosaic art is that not even a single website or blog from India has been included in the web 2.0 logos art, though there are worth full websites from India that are much popular than many of the websites present in mosaic art. Nevertheless, a great art work. Thanks, Jelle de Bruin.

A top notch video sharing and entertainment portal from France - DailyMotion is set to arrive in India for online video sharing activity in Indian web market. A DailyMotion website user can discover, upload and embed videos online through the site, that obviously include user generated content in form of videos, the france based website would share market with strong contender such as YouTube India, AOL India Videos, MSN India Videos and also Metacafe that too have strong user base in India. To compete with others in online video market DailyMotion has tied-up with Hungama entertainment firm which have strong base with over 250 deals with media and entertainment companies to let their content travel through various digital platforms. Hungama Mobile will act as a anchor partner cum Business associate in Indian operations as company has no plans to set up the physical presence in India, Hungama Mobile will deal with all content manipulation activities in India. Moreover Dailymotion.com has tied with Eros , Mid-Day and Bollywood Hungama which deals in entertainment, news and movie content repectively, wherein their content will be available on DailyMotion platform, the company is also close to deals with news channels such as NDTV, Aaj Tak ...