Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is a self-described “marketplace for work.”  The service lets you outsource tasks to a decentralized, on-demand, scalable workforce made up of thousands of Mechanical Turk Workers.  The tasks are appropriately named Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs) because the service is designed for repetitive tasks that can’t be done by a computer because they [...]

Mint, Thrive, Cake, Yodlee, Quicken Online, Buxfer, Geezeo, Wesabe, and Moneytrackin‘. These are just a few of the many companies in the crowded field of web apps for personal finance management (PFM).  These consumer sites all perform the same basic service: aggregating data from disparate financial accounts (savings, checking, credit cards, loans etc), helping users [...]

My recent Virgin America flight was refreshing.  The high-tech amenities -  electrical plugs, USB and Ethernet hookups, and wifi network (internet coming soon) – are awesome.  Combine those with the airplane’s psychedelic lighting, the hilarious cartoon safety video, and a young and attractive flight crew, and you’ve got a one of a kind flying experience. [...]

This brilliant advertisement for Travelers Insurance recently appeared on Inc Magazine’s back cover. The tagline is “Just when you’ve prepared for a million-and-one insurance risks, in walks a million-and-two.”  In case the picture of the ad isn’t clear, a ceiling fan business is about to be visited by an abnormally tall customer.  I really love [...]

Spend 10 minutes with me and I’ll mention Yelp multiple times. I guess you would say I’m a Yelp evangelist.  A member of the Yelp Elite Squad and frequent attendee at Yelp NYC events, I have even given Yelp’s app a coveted spot on the front screen of my iPhone.  And it warms my heart [...]