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The Happiest Place to Live 2009

Gr8List — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 06:42:56 +0000

Hawaii was the happiest place to live in the U.S. in 2009, according to a newly released national survey. Hawaii also topped the charts for life evaluation, emotional health and physical health. Nine of the top 10 well-being states reside in the Midwest and the West. The results come from interviews with more than 350,000 American adults who took part in the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index in 2009. This is the second year of the survey. View the complete list of the happiest states on LiveScience.com.

The well-being score for each state is an average of six sub-categories, including: life evaluation (self-evaluation about your present life situation and anticipated one in five years); emotional health; work environment (such as job satisfaction); physical health; healthy behavior; basic access (access to healthcare, a doctor, a safe place to exercise and walk, as well as community satisfaction).

The top 10 states and their average well-being scores (out of a possible 100 points):

* Hawaii: 70.2
* Utah: 68.3
* Montana: 68.3
* Minnesota: 67.8
* Iowa: 67.6
* Vermont: 67.4
* Colorado: 67.3
* Alaska: 67.3
* North Dakota: 67.3
* Kansas: 67.2

Vimeo’s 25 Favorite Videos of 2009

Gr8List — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:00:17 +0000

Vimeo is a social networking site for filmmakers and video creators, with more than 2.8 million members. Here are five of Vimeo’s favorite videos of the year. See the rest at Vimeo…

(Give the aquarium video some time to load before watching…otherwise you won’t have smooth playback)

Kuroshio Sea – 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world – (song is Please don’t go by Barcelona) from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.

The Tarantino Mixtape from Eclectic Method on Vimeo.

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

A Thousand Words from Ted Chung on Vimeo.

powerlinerflyers from wes johnson on Vimeo.

75 Best Business Blogs of 2009

Gr8List — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:48:30 +0000

What defined business in 2009? Bankers and bailouts, for one. The proliferation of social media. A radical shift in the ways we find and accept jobs. A redefinition of the real estate, credit, and media markets. In a word, 2009 was full of fluctuations. And nobody covered, commented on, and analyzed them better than the 75 blogs on BusinessPundit.com’s list.

ACCOUNTING

1. re: The Auditors
Covers the business of the Big 4 accounting firms. Essential updates on accounting industry regulation, auditing, strategy, and more. High-quality independent journalism and a wide scope of corporate accounting issues make re: The Auditors an outstanding resource.

2. CPA Success
Written by the Maryland Association of CPAs, the blog helps accountants succeed in their careers. Chock full of useful tips, news, analysis, and even accountant humor.

ADVERTISING

3. AdvertisingAge
Advertising Age’s prolific blog covers ad industry news, campaigns, and commentary. Digest it daily to stay up on the ad world.

4. AdFreak
Another magazine-sponsored blog, this time from AdWeek. The bloggers present ad images and clips on each post, followed by a background and commentary. They have a penchant for finding really interesting content, about ads, companies, and people in the industry.

BUSINESS: GENERAL

5. The Atlantic Business Channel
News and current events coverage related to business, the economy, and government. The bloggers offer good, comprehensible analysis and commentary on daily events.

6. Stanley Bing’s Blog
Stanley Bing is a writing legend. He says it like it is—and sometimes it’s damn funny. Don’t miss his blog.

BUSINESS LAW

7. The Conglomerate
Five law professors weigh in on law, business, education, and a variety of other topics. Their expert analysis on business law is not only helpful for understanding events from a legal perspective, but also very readable.

8. Corporate Governance
In the Harvard Law School’s corporate governance and financial regulation blog, more than 100 experts talk about regulation, strategy, M&A, governance, and more. Get the latest on such legal topics from the leading minds in the industry.

BUSINESS MEDIA POLICE

9. Beat the Press
Economist Dean Baker debunks economics media claims on a daily basis. His posts are short and easy for non-economists to understand. The fact that he has so much to debunk makes this an essential media supplement.

10. Brad DeLong
This Berkeley economics professor provides deep-level understanding on what’s behind modern debates, media claims, and claims politicians make. It’s a good place to find insight and understanding on today’s debates.

CAREER

11. The Career Doctor Blog
A useful Q&A/advice column covering a variety of career-related topics. Chances are, a few of them affect you. The Career Doctor offers cogent, useful advice for people facing the gamut of career concerns.

12. Brazen Careerist
Penelope Trunk’s unique, brilliant, and direct commentary on both her career and personal life make this blog a classic. You’ll react to something in her blog, guaranteed.

CONSUMER ISSUES

13. Consumerist
The definitive source on customer service, how-tos, shopping, investigations, any other consumer-rights issues.

ECONOMICS

14. Econlog
Economists Arnold Kling, Bryan Caplan, and David Henderson comment on a wide range of subjects, from finance to history. They get readers to think about how economics affects each topic.

15. Marginal Revolution
Economists Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen talk economics, markets, trends, and about other economists. A good place to read about current news from an economics perspective.

16. The Becker-Posner Blog
Nobel laureate and University of Chicago economist Gary Becker and US Court of Appeals judge Richard Posner analyze the current economic situations and national policies. These two heavyweights offer an unparalleled perspective on current policies and economic events.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

17. Toilet Paper Entrepreneur
Full of tips, discussion, videos, and other resources for new entrepreneurs. TPE sets the standard for informing and supporting its venture-hungry readers.

18. The Entrepreneurial Mind
Professor, entrepreneur, and consultant Jeff Cornwall has a birds-eye approach to entrepreneurship. Catch up on issues, statistics, findings, and policy relevant to entrepreneurs here.

GREEN BUSINESS

19. Triple Pundit
Triple Pundit covers news, commentary, and analysis about the triple bottom line, which has to do with sustainable business and the environment. Covers a range of relevant issues, from what companies are greenest, to new products, to foreign affairs. Consistently insightful and interesting.

20. EcoGeek
EcoGeek covers the space where technology meets nature. And tech innovations help make a more environmentally-friendly economy. This blog is a useful resource for keeping abreast with green developments that might affect your industry and business.

FINANCE: GENERAL

21. The Big Picture
Author, financial commentator, speaker, and businessman Barry Ritholz and others share brief, informative daily commentary on finance and the economy. Written clearly enough for anyone to understand, but with unique, informed insights.

22. Naked Capitalism
A variety of contributors, some from other prominent finance blogs, make Naked Capitalism a one-stop shop for current events and in-depth analysis relating to events in the financial world, most of them having to do with the government and policy.

23. Zero Hedge
One of the ultimate insider finance blogs. Zero Hedge regularly shares the financial news that the mainstream media is too slow (or involved with outside corporate forces) to catch. Written anonymously and in the spirit of informational freedom, Zero Hedge is a must-read for anyone interested in raw truth. Note that some information isn’t for financial novices.

24. Calculated Risk
An excellent place to get your daily smart finance news commentary fix. Concise posts, good links, smart commentary make this a finance blog classic.

FINANCE: LINK BLOGS

25. Real Clear Markets
Nicely laid out information on finance, economics, and business, largely covering good content from the mainstream media. Easy to get good articles, fast.

FINANCIAL CRISIS

26. Credit Writedowns
This excellent blog evolved into something even better in 2009. Edward Harrison and other bloggers cover finance and economics in informative daily posts. Refreshingly, they don’t neglect the foreign sector. Their credit crisis timeline is a unique and useful resource. This year, their compilation of healthcare links is another excellent place to figure out what’s going on.

27. Baseline Scenario
Written by economists, entrepreneurs, consultants, and financial experts—all in three talented people—The Baseline Scenario comments on today’s financial crisis issues, from the national debt to healthcare. They use evidence and sound reasoning to comment on topics of the day.

28. Financial Armageddon
As the blog’s name suggests, this isn’t an optimist’s view on the financial crisis, or how it is being handled. But author and blogger Michael Panzner cuts through spin to cover the American situation in all its hardship, social, economic, and financial.

FRANCHISING

29. The Franchise King
This blog shares news, contests, commentary, and tips for franchisers. His posts are consistently short, interesting, and relevant.

FREELANCING

30. Freelance Switch
Chock full of useful tips for freelancers, this blog speaks to workers who do it themselves. Bonus: Comics, contests, and anecdotes.

GENERATIONAL

31. GEN Y

Young Successful Entrepreneur
This entrepreneurially-focused blog, written by Gen-Yer Jun Loayza, describes one young entrepreneur’s journey from startup to success. Loayza, a talented writer, offers tips, stories, and useful details from his own experiences.

32. GEN X

Generation X Finance
This useful blog covers financial issues that apply to Gen Xers. Focused on topics like establishing a career, building wealth, and getting out of debt. Generation X Finance is full of useful tips, analysis, and commentary.

33. BABY BOOMER

The Boomer Blog
Though it’s focused on a wider variety of topics than just business, the Boomer Blog covers marketing, retirement, finances, small business, and economy-related issues relevant to the age group. Its Daily Digest, which covers news that affects boomers, is also a very useful resource.

HUMAN RESOURCES

34. Gautam Ghosh
HR consultant and social media strategist Gautam Ghosh offers interesting comments on people, organizations, and using social media in an HR content in this diverse, fascinating blog.

35. Evil HR Lady
Quite simply the best, most blunt HR Q&A out there.

INTERNATIONAL

36. International Business—General

Global Edge
Two dozen contributors cover both international and country-specific business/economic issues. Their unique reports cover everything from Tehran’s first hypermarket to the fine art industry as a global economic indicator. An excellent place to catch up on general business happenings across the globe.

37. Africa

Timbuktu Chronicles

Emeka Okafor’s incredible range of business experiences include starting companies, co-running a food/beverage company, managing a PE fund, and directing the 2007 TED global conference in Tanzania. In Timbuktu Chronicles, he covers entrepreneurship, innovation, sustainability, technology, and more. His inclusion of individual people’s stories and entrepreneurial ventures lets you know the African business world through individual stories. A valuable blog.

38. EU

A Fistful of Euros
Commentary on economic, business, and current news in the EU. 15 authors cover both individual countries and EU-wide news, as well as commentary on more remote countries, like the US.

39. Middle East (specifically the UAE)

Emirates Economist
News, links, and analysis about the UAE economy. The perfect English-language destination to get your Gulf news fix.

40. China

China Briefing
This blog offers China-related business news with professional, magazine-quality reportage. Its sister publications, Vietnam briefing and India briefing, are also worth reading.

41. Latin America
For Latin America, we came up with a tie. The first blog, Latin Americanist, isn’t quite as business/economy-focused as we’d like for the purposes of this list. The second, Double Handshake, focuses only on Latin America-China relations. Both, however, are excellent.

Latin Americanist

Nine contributors cover business, politics, and culture in Latin America. Coverage is consistently good, as are the links to current news. An ideal place to load up on Latin America, in English.

Double Handshake
Covers news and business related to the China-Latin America relationship in a succinct, relevant, and entertaining way.

42. India

WATBlog
Web, advertising, mobile, technology, funding, startups…WATblog covers a substantial portion of India’s business world. How does it do so? With news, reviews, interviews, tools, and features. It’s a satisfying and readable mix.

43. Australia/NZ

The Australian Small Business Blog
Author and small business expert Dr. Greg Chapman’s useful, concise posts help small business owners market, strategize, grow, and manage their small business. An excellent digest to consume a few times a week.

INVESTIGATIVE

44. Deep Capture
The people behind Deep Capture want to expose how regulators, politicians, the media, and intellectuals have been influenced by other powerful people and institutions. That translates to posts with topics like SEC complicity in naked short selling, what hedge funds are manipulating markets and how, and the false media story around the death of Bear Stearns. Get behind the lies—or just find a different version of the stories you read.

INVESTING

45. Seeking Alpha
Seeking Alpha isn’t so much a blog as a financial website containing a bunch of blogs, but it’s so good that we had to include it. It’s a one-stop shop for stock market analysis, opinion, and commentary. They publish around 250 fresh articles per day, so whether you’re interested in commodities or day trading, you’ll be sated.

46. Abnormal Returns
Excellent daily investing and finance links, many to quality blogs and new media sites. You’re bound to find something interesting and perhaps lesser-known through a daily peek at the links here. Also includes commentary on current investment trends and events.

MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP

47. Management Craft
Consultant and management expert Lisa Haneberg shares perspective and advice on issues that managers face. Her posts, which appear several times a month, should be read slowly and savored.

48. Leadership Now
Leadership Now uses book reviews, articles, links, research summaries, multimedia, and more to give you a complete leadership resource. Its material helps you establish and solidify the mentality that you need to lead effectively.

49. The Harvard Business Review Blogs
Maybe this one is so obvious that it doesn’t need to be on this list. Then again, it’s so good that it should be on any list. The folks at the Harvard Business Review provide timely, crucial information and analysis on issues facing all managers and leaders.

MARKETING

50. Duct Tape Marketing
Geared at the small business crowd, this essential marketing resource offers news, tools, tips, and commentary relevant to SMB. The site also has an excellent, books, and other resources.

51. Seth’s Blog
Seth Godin is a guru of sorts. His frequent, to-the-point insights make you both ponder your own outlook, then improve. Utterly essential.

52. eConsultancy Blog
The eConsultancy blog offers useful tips, information on trends, and news related to the digital marketing space. Especially useful for digital marketing and ecommerce professionals.

53. Copyblogger
The go-to resource for copywriting, content marketing, and successfully building an online presence. Follow Copyblogger regularly to increase your skillset in these areas.

MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS

54. DealBook
The New York Times’ DealBook consistently has superior details, background, and reports on the M&A space. Not that this should be your only resource, but it’s definitely one of the best.

PERSONAL FINANCE

55. Get Rich Slowly
GRS helps you save money, time, and headaches by compiling tips, how-tos, lists, and anecdotes. The blog is not only a quality daily digest, but an excellent resource on topics ranging from savings accounts to insurance.

56. The Simple Dollar
As its name suggests, the Simple Dollar offers simple ways to manage your personal finances. Blogger Trent Hamm, after having his own financial meltdown, created this useful resource to explain and explore how to simplify your personal finances. Book reviews, an advice column, and link posts round out the content.

PHARMA/HEALTH

57. Pharmalot
Written by longtime pharma journalist Ed Silverman, Pharmalot covers pharma news, trends, and issues. It’s really well-written, and could be considered a niche newspaper. A quality resource.

58. Café Pharma
Daily links to news relevant to those in the pharmaceutical business, especially salespeople. You’ll find a large selection of news headlines, most from the mainstream media, that will keep you up to date with the pharma biz.

PUBLIC RELATIONS

59. PR 2.0
PR agency principal Brian Solis writes about PR and social media news, trends, and events. His posts are short, and he updates frequently, making this a good blog to read in tasty bites.

60. Naked PR
Blogger Jennifer Mattern calls Naked PR a “spin-free zone…dedicated to cutting through the crap in online public relations…issues.” That’s just what she does, and she does it well. Her bluntness refreshes and informs.

PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

61. The Cranky Product Manager
Entertaining and well-written, The Cranky Product Mananger documents the experiences of a fictional product management professional at a software company named DysfunctoSoft. For a fictional story, CPM’s posts sound mighty real, but put that aside for now. Her frank, honest, snarky posts make for a fun read, whether you’re a product manager or not.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

62. Fear No Project
Bruce McGraw combines observations, experiences, and analysis to address issues that project managers face. It’s the kind of blog with in-depth posts that appear several times a month. Savor and absorb his posts—they’re good.

REAL ESTATE

63. Bigger Pockets
Covers real estate news, investment, marketing, sales, technology, and landlord issues. Useful articles both for seasoned pros and beginners. The blog also has a good networking component, via forums, groups, bulletins, and a resource.

64. Altos Research
Want to know the current state of the real estate market? Catch it at Altos Research’s blog, which relays real-time real estate data. Charts and reports give you hard data to back up your next move.

SALES

65. Score More Sales
Sales consultant, author, and coach Lori Richardson shares sales tips and tricks in a readable, engaging blog. She weaves stories into her tips, making them more accessible.

SEO

66. Search Engine Land
This journalist-led SEO news and info site offers professional, compelling industry coverage.

SMALL BUSINESS

67. Small Business Trends
This complete small business resource offers a host of excellent tips for the SMB crowd. In addition to tips, they write book and product reviews, research roundups, host a radio show, and host forums. It’s a one-stop shop for entrepreneurs.

68. Small Business Brief
Small Business Brief “fetches” small business news, which means it provides you with useful SMB links almost every day. Scroll down to find the quality article that suits your needs. They have lists for Sales/Marketing, Finance & Legal, Website development, entrepreneurship, and management. A great place for a regular news fix.

SOCIAL MEDIA

69. Mashable
Perhaps the ultimate social media resource, Mashable covers the gamut of social media news, tips, lists, and how-tos. It’s an extensive social media resource that you should bookmark and check at least weekly.

70. Chris Brogan
Tech and social media expert Chris Brogan blogs about social media, online marketing, new technology, digital trends, ideas, and more. It’s an interesting take on social media by a highly-regarded opinion leader. He hosts good videos, too.

SPORTS BUSINESS

71. Sports Biz
Writer Darren Rovell reports on sports news from a business perspective. He covers the gamut of sports business, from endorsements to promising young players. An excellent daily read.

TECHNOLOGY/IT

72. Ars Technica
Ars Technica is a vast resource for IT pros. Its posts, which appear multiple times per day, cover hardware products, software tools, infrastructure, industry trends, security and more. The business section is an especially good place for IT managers to catch up on the latest.

73. TechCrunch
News from the hardware/software/IT space, including new products, IPOs and funding, companies, campaigns, research, people, industry news, and more. Consistently good and on top of the tech game.

VENTURE CAPITAL

74. Ventureblog
August Capital partner David Hornik updates this blog several times a month with analysis, commentary, and insights for those in the VC world.

75. A VC
Longtime New York City VC Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures) covers company moves, public policy, investor behavior, media, tech, and a whole lot more. His brings insight and a human touch to all of his topics.

100 Best Global Brands 2009

Gr8List — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:51:56 +0000

Google, Amazon, and Zara are among the top gainers in BusinessWeek and Interbrand’s annual ranking of the “Best Global Brands.” UBS slipped dramatically down the list, falling 31 places to No. 72, losing 50% of its brand value. Coca-Cola remains the No. 1 brand for the ninth year in a row.

For the ninth consecutive year, BusinessWeek teamed up with Interbrand, a leading brand consultancy, to publish the ranking of the top 100 global brands by brand value. Amazon, Pepsi, Audi, Panasonic, and Campbell’s have all prospered during a challenging year for marketing executives. For the first time, the overall value of the top 100 brands has declined 4.6%, or US $55.472 billion. Seven brands, however, fell right off the list. Among the biggest: Merrill Lynch, which ranked No. 34 last year, and AIG, previously No. 54, after both required
emergency assistance from the U.S. government. ING, ranked No. 86 last year, also fell off the list after huge subprime losses. Not surprisingly, big banks and auto brands fared the worst, while food brands benefited as consumers began eating more at home. View the full list of 100 Best Global Brands on BusinessWeek.com. And check out Interbrands 34-page report…

1. Coca-Cola U.S.
2. IBM U.S.
3. Microsoft U.S.
4. GE  U.S.
5. Nokia Finland
6. McDonald’s  U.S.
7. Google U.S.
8. Toyota Japan
9. Intel U.S.
10. Disney U.S.
11. Hewlett-Packard  U.S.
12. Mercedes-Benz  Germany
13. Gillette  U.S.
14. Cisco U.S.
15. BMW  Germany
16. Louis Vuitton  France
17. Marlboro  U.S.
18. Samsung  S. Korea
20. Apple  U.S.
21. H&M  Sweden
22. American Express  U.S.
23. Pepsi  U.S.
24. Oracle  U.S.
25. Nescafe  Switzerland
26. Nike  U.S.
27. SAP  Germany
28. Ikea  Sweden
29. Sony  Japan
30. Budweiser  Belgium
31. UPS  U.S.
32. HSBC  Britain
33. Canon  Japan
34. Kellogg’s  U.S.
35. Dell  U.S.
36. Citi  U.S.
37. JPMorgan  U.S.
38. Goldman Sachs  U.S.
39. Nintendo  Japan
40. Thomson Reuters  Canada
41. Gucci  Italy
42. Philips  Netherlands
43. Amazon  U.S.
44. L’Oreal  France
45. Accenture  U.S.
46. eBay  U.S.
47. Siemens  Germany
48. Heinz  U.S.
49. Ford  U.S.
50. Zara Spain

NYTimes Top 10 Travel Stories of 2009

Gr8List — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 07:15:34 +0000

Chic hostels in London, the remote wilderness of southern Utah and luxurious getaways in Costa Rica — these are just a few of the year’s most viewed stories from The New York Times Travel section. Read the full article…

1. Frugal Paris
Even for those on a budget, the City of Light can offer unexpected pleasures.

2. Frugal Portland
The good life comes cheap in this city of artisanal cafes and funky neighborhoods.

3. Hiking to the Bottom of the Grand Canyon
In winter, this national park is a peaceful and awe-inspiring retreat for its few visitors.

4. The Crab Houses of Maryland’s Eastern Shore
To get a real taste of the state’s tidewater region, grab a mallet.

5. Finding the Charm of Cross-Country Rail Travel
For one traveler, a cross-country trip was a way to reconnect with America.

6. Costa Rica Any Way You Want It
Explore challenging adventure spots, pioneering eco-retreats and luxurious getaways.

7. Europe’s Hostels Grow Up
Hostels are leaving their backpacker image behind with upscale locations and stylish furnishings.

8. America’s Outback
Southern Utah offers 1.9 million acres of natural wonders.

9. Top 10 Travel Gadgets Under $50
Travel space bags and a flexible camera tripod make the list of useful and affordable gadgets.

10. Staying in Touch Internationally
The Frugal Traveler shares recommendations for making and receiving cheap long-distance calls.

Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2009

Gr8List — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:00:27 +0000

For Publishers Weekly annual best books list, they chose 100 from more than 50,000 volumes. This year they upped the ante with the top 10 list below. Check out Publishers Weekly top 100 books of 2009, divided by category: fiction, poetry, mystery, science fiction, mass market, comics, nonfiction, and religion. Visit PW…

Cheever: A Life
Blake Bailey (Knopf)

Await Your Reply
Dan Chaon (Ballantine)

A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon
Neil Sheehan (Random House)

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
Daniyal Mueenuddin (Norton)

Big Machine
Victor LaValle (Spiegel & Grau)

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science
Richard Holmes (Pantheon)

Stitches
David Small (Norton)

Shop Class as Soulcraft
Matthew B. Crawford (Penguin Press)

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi
Geoff Dyer (Pantheon)

Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
David Grann (Doubleday)

Kiplinger’s Best Cities 2009

Gr8List — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:58:39 +0000

For the 2009 list, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance kept their focus on the best places to live, but also wanted to emphasize the best cities for work. They selected cities that have stable employment rates in key job areas as well as provide new career opportunities. A premium was put on places that will lead the country in employment growth when the recovery takes off. Read the report or view the full rankings for 361 U.S. metropolitan areas. Then use the tool to find your best city.

No. 1: Huntsville, Alabama
No. 2: Albuquerque, New Mexico
No. 3: Washington D.C.
No. 4: Charlottesville, Virginia
No. 5: Athens, Georgia
No. 6: Olympia, Washington
No. 7: Madison, Wisconsin
No. 8: Austin, Texas
No. 9: Flagstaff, Arizona
No. 10: Raleigh, North Carolina

10 Best Movie Posters of 2009

Gr8List — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 04:42:45 +0000

Moviefone.com compiled a list of the ten best movie posters of 2009. View the full article…

1. ‘An Education’
2. ‘The Girlfriend Experience’
3. ‘Jennifer’s Body’
4. ‘Up’
5. ‘Broken Embraces’
6. ‘Inglourious Basterds’
7. ‘Up in the Air’
8. ‘Food Inc.’
9. ‘Precious: Based on a Novel by Sapphire’
10. ‘Julie & Julia’

US News Best Colleges 2010

Gr8List — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:17:56 +0000

Harvard and Princeton share the top of US News & World Report’s 2010 list of national universities, while Williams ranks the highest among liberal arts colleges. View the full best colleges report…

America’s Best Colleges
* Baccalaureate Colleges
* Business programs
* Engineering programs
* Master’s Universities
* National Universities
* Liberal Arts Colleges

NPR’s Best Books of 2009

Gr8List — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 23:06:56 +0000

The complete list of NPR’s Best Books of 2009 recommendations. Each critic’s list is presented separately. Read excerpts from each book on NPR.org…

Recommended by Glen Weldon
(“The Five Best Books To Share With Your Friends”)
* Conquest of the Useless by Werner Herzog
* Asterios Polyp,edited by David Mazzucchelli
* The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, by Lydia Davis
* The Supergirls, by Mike Madrid
* Everything Matters!, by Ron Currie Jr.

Recommended by John McAlley
(“Big And Beautiful: Best Gift Books of 2009″)
* Norman Rockwell: Behind The Camera, by Ron Schick
* The TOON Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics
* A New Literary History of America edited by Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors
* Painting Today, edited by Tony Godfrey
* The Sartorialist by Scott Schuman
* * Charley Harper: An Illustrated Life, by Charley Harper and Todd Oldham
* The TOON Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics, edited by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly
* Science: The Definitive Visual Guide, by Adam Hart-Davis
* Photo-wisdom: Master Photographers And Their Art, by Lewis Blackwell
* Q&A’s from Vanity Fair’s Proust Questionnaire by Graydon Carter, Illustrated by Risko
* Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans edited by Sarah Greenough

Recommended by Booksellers Daniel Goldin, Rona Brinlee and Lucia Silva
(“Season’s Readings: Top Picks From Indie Booksellers”)

Recommended by Daniel Goldin
* The Hour Between, by Sebastian Stuart
* Await Your Reply, by Dan Chaon
* Little Bee, by Chris Cleave
* Blame, by Michelle Huneven
* Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life, by Carol Sklenicka

Recommended by Rona Brinlee
* Bad Things Happen, by Harry Dolan
* Going Away Shoes, by Jill McCorkle
* Logicomix: An Epic Search For Truth, by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou
* This Is Where I Leave You, by Jonathan Tropper
* The Tree That Time Built, selected by Mary Ann Hoberman and Linda Winston

Recommended by Lucia Silva
* The Paris Review Interviews edited by Philip Gourevitch
* Vanity Fair’s Proust Questionnaire, edited by Graydon Carter
* Pattern In The Carpet: A Personal History With Jigsaws, by Margaret Drabble
* The Contact Sheet, edited by Steve Crist
* Wallace Stevens: Selected Poems, by Wallace Stevens, edited by John N. Serio

Recommended by T. Susan Chang
(“The 10 Best Cookbooks of 2009″)
* The Pleasures of Cooking for One by Judith Jones
* Asian Dumplings: Mastering Gyoza, Spring Rolls, Samosas, and More, by Andrea Nguyen
* Clean Food: A Seasonal Guide to Eating Close to the Source, by Terry Walters
* Gourmet Today: More Than 1000 All-New Recipes for the Contemporary Kitchen, by Ruth Reichl
* Stir: Mixing It Up In The Italian Tradition by Barbara Lynch
* Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking, by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo, Hardcover
* Savory Baking by Mary Cech
* Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day, by Peter Reinhart
* The Craft of Baking by Karen DeMasco and Mindy Fox
* Rose’s Heavenly Cakes, by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Recommended by Alan Cheuse
(“Picks To Warm A Winter’s Night”)
* American Fantastic Tales edited by Peter Straub
* Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing, edited by Ilan Stavans
* The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard by J.G. Ballard
* Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son, by Michael Chabon
* City Boy: My Life in New York During the 1960s and ’70s by Edmund White
* Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson, Illustrated by John Lawrence

Recommended by Jessa Crispin
(“A World Of Novels: Picks For Best Foreign Fiction”)
* Season of Ash: A Novel In Three Acts, by Jorge Volpi
* There Once Lived A Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby, by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
* The Armies, by Evelio Rosero
* The Confessions of Noa Weber, by Gail Hareven
* The Twin, by Gerbrand Bakker

Recommended by Jonathan Hunt
(“Best Young Adult Fiction 2009″)
* Charles And Emma: The Darwin’s Leap Of Faith, by Deborah Heiligman
* Lips Touch: Three Times, by Laini Taylor
* The Lost Conspiracy, by Francis Hardinge
* Marcelo In The Real World, by Francisco X
* When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead

Recommended by Librarian Nancy Pearl
(“Under-The-Radar Gift Books”)
* Spooner, by Peter Dexter
* When Wanders Cease To Roam: A Traveler’s Journal Of Staying put, by Vivian Swift
* The Good Soldiers, by David Finkel
* Liar, by Justine Larbalestier
* Going Bovine, by Libba Bray
* In The Town All Year ‘Round,by Rotraut Susanne Berner
* Bubble Trouble, by Margaret Mahy
* Travels In A Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile, by Sara Wheeler

Recommended by Heller McAlpin
(“The Year’s Best Memoirs”)
* Stitches, by David Small
* Somewhere Towards The End, by Diana Athill
* Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, And The Last Days Of WASP Splendor, by Tad Friend
* Camus, A Romance, by Elizabeth Hawes
* The Slippery Year: A Meditation On Happily Ever After, by Melanie Gideon

Recommended by Lynn Neary
(“Best Books For A Book Club”)
* Cutting For Stone, by Abraham Verghese
* The Interrogative Mood: A Novel?, by Padgett Powell
* Too Much Happiness, by Alice Munro
* A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick
* In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, by Daniyal Mueenuddin

Recommended by Ketzel Levine
(“2009′s Crop Of Great Gardening Books”)
* Farm City: The Education Of An Urban Farmer, by Novella Carpente
* The American Meadow Garden: Creating A Natural Alternative To The Traditional Lawn, by John Greenlee
* Rodale’s Ultimate Encyclopedia Of Organic Gardening, by Fern Marshall Bradley, Barbara Ellis, and Ellen Phillips
* Bulb, by Anna Pavord
* Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother And Other Botanical Atoricities, by Amy Stewart

Recommended by John Freeman
(“The Best Debut Fiction of 2009″)
* Once The Shore, by Paul Yoon
* Tinkers, by Paul Harding
* In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, by Daniyal Mueenuddin
* An Elegy For Easterly: Stories, by Petina Gappah
* Censoring An Iranian Love Story, by Shahriar Mandanipour

Recommended by John Freeman
(“The Mile High Club: ’09′s Best Airplane Books”)
* The Old Man And Me, by Elaine Dundy
* The Flying Troutmans: A Novel, by Miriam Toews
* Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life And Language In The Amazonian Jungle, by Daniel Everett
* American Nerd: The Story Of My People, by Benjamin Nugent
* How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read, by Pierre Bayard
* Geneology Of Morals, by Friedrich Nietzsche

Recommended by Maureen Corrigan
(“The Best Books Of 2009″)
* The Woman Behind The New Deal, by Kirstin Downey
* Fordlandia: The Rise And Fall Of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City, by Greg Grandin
* Dancing In The Dark, by Morris Dickstein
* Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story, by Isabel Gillies
* The James Deans, by Reed Farrell Coleman
* The Believers, by Zoe Heller
* A Gate At The Stairs, by Lorrie Moore
* Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin
* The Man In The Wooden Hat, by Jane Gardam
* The Financial Lives Of The Poets, by Jess Walter

Recommended by Steve Weinberg
(“Fit To Print: Top 5 Current Affairs Books Of 2009″)
* American Original: The Life And Constitution Of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, by Joan Biskupic
* The Good Soldiers, by David Finkel
* Strength In What Remains, by Tracy Kidder
* The Healing Of America: A Global Quest For Better, Cheaper, And Fairer Health Care, by T.R. Reid
* When Everything Changed: The Amazing Story Of American Women From 1960 To The Present, by Gail Collins

The Altantic’s Books of the Year

Gr8List — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 22:18:20 +0000

Atlantic literary editor Benjamin Schwarz picks the twenty five best books of 2009. The top five books are listed below. View the twenty runners up on Atlantic.com…

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: A Life
By Michael Burlingame
Johns Hopkins

Measured, psychologically astute, authoritative when it can be, Michael Burlingame’s exhaustive narrative (2,024 pages!) is unafraid of ambiguity and indeterminacy. This is the life of Lincoln for our times.
[Read Christopher Hitchens's full review from the July/August Atlantic]

THE CHILDREN’S BOOK: A Novel
By A. S. Byatt
Knopf

Byatt has wrought a richly detailed, decade-spanning, at once Olympian and pointillist masterpiece. To read this gorgeous bolt of fiction is to fully enter a world.
[Read the full review from the October Atlantic]

THE THIRD REICH TRILOGY (Concluding With The Third Reich at War)
By Richard J. Evans
Penguin

Evans’s cool, crisply argued three-volume chronicle will be for a generation the definitive general history of Nazi Germany in English.

IT’S BEGINNING TO HURT: Stories
By James Lasdun
FSG

This collection of short stories illuminates the everyday agonies of the mind, its anxieties, obsessions, doubts, and yearnings. Lasdun pins each observation to the page with grace and exactitude.
[Read the full review from the September Atlantic]

MRS. WOOLF AND THE SERVANTS: An Intimate History of Domestic Life in Bloomsbury
By Alison Light
Bloomsbury

In her elegant, sparkling book, Light marries social and literary criticism as she probes the deeply intimate, often sordid, always fraught relationship between women servants and their female employers.

50 Most Powerful Women in Business

Gr8List — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 08:58:46 +0000

Fortune Magazine’s 2009 list of America’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business highlights the women who have a “secret weapon” in the business world. Fortune ranks the women not on their salaries, but by their past successes and ability to effect change in their companies. Read the full article…

1. Indra Nooyi - PepsiCo
2. Irene Rosenfeld - Kraft Foods
3. Pat Woertz - Archer Daniels Midland
4. Angela Braly - Wellpoint
5. Andrea Jung - Avon Products
6. Oprah Winfrey - Harpo
7. Ellen Kullman - Dupont
8. Carol Bartz - Yahoo
9. Ursula Burns - Xerox
10. Brenda Barnes - Sara Lee
11. Ginni Rometty - IBM
12. Safra Catz - Oracle
13. Ann Livermore - Hewlett-Packard
14. Sheri McCoy - Johnson & Johnson
15. Melanie Healey - Procter & Gamble
16. Anne Sweeney - Walt Disney
17. Heidi Miller - J.P. Morgan Chase
18. Carol Meyrowitz - TJX
19. Colleen Goggins - Johnson & Johnson
20. Judy McGrath - Viacom
21. Ann Moore - Time Warner
22. Sheryl Sandberg - Facebook
23. Carrie Cox - Schering-Plough
24. Susan Chambers - Wal-Mart
25. Barbara Desoer - Bank of America
26. Susan Ivey - Reynolds American
27. Charlene Begley - General Electric
28. Abigail Johnson - Fidelity
29. Liz Smith - Avon Products
30. Sallie Krawcheck - Bank Of America
31. Christina Gold - Western Union
32. Jan Fields - McDonald’s
33. Sue Wagner - BlackRock
34. Pam Nicholson - Enterprise
35. Joanne Maguire - Lockheed Martin
36. Claire Babrowski - Toys “R” Us
37. Deirdre Connelly - GlaxoSmithKline
38. Gail Boudreaux - UnitedHealth
39. Meredith Whitney - Meredith Whitney Advisory Group
40. Lorrie Norrington - eBay
41. Kathleen Murphy - Fidelity
42. Cathie Lesjak - Hewlett-Packard
43. Linda Hudson - BAE Systems
44. Marissa Mayer - Google
45. Lynn Elsenhans - Sunoco
46. Cathie Black - Hearst Magazines
47. Bonnie Hammer - General Electric
48. Lauren Zalaznick - General Electric
49. Amy Pascal - Sony Pictures Entertainment
50. Maggie Wilderotter - Frontier Communications

States Ranked by Top Colleges

Gr8List — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 07:53:18 +0000

The Global Language Monitor ranked the top U.S. colleges and universities according their appearance in global print and electronic media for a 2009 report. States were ranked by the number of the top 225 colleges and universities located in each state. See the list of Top Colleges and Universities as ranked by state…

The Top Ten States, with the number of Top Colleges represented:

1. New York (29)
2. California (22)
3. Pennsylvania (19)
4. Massachusetts (19)
5. Virginia (9)
6. Texas (9)
7. Ohio (8)
8. Illinois (8)
10. Georgia (6) tie
10. Indiana (6) tie

Metacritic’s Best-Reviewed Albums of 2009

Gr8List — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 06:08:19 +0000

Metacritic.com collates reviews from respected critics and publications. Their album score shows the critical consensus at a glance by taking a weighted average of critic grades. The following list displays the 30 highest-scoring albums for the year in Metacritic’s database. Albums must have at least 7 reviews to qualify for high score lists. Reissues, “best-of” compilations and box sets are not eligible for inclusion. View the full list at Metacritic.com, plus other year-end critic top ten lists culled from various music publications.

1. Live At Reading by Nirvana - 93
2. Live In London by Leonard Cohen - 91
3. Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective - 89
4. Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… Pt. II by Raekwon - 88
5. Blue Record by Baroness - 88
6. Monoliths & Dimensions by Sunn O))) - 88
7. Historicity by Vijay Iyer Trio - 88
8. Seek Magic by Memory Tapes - 87
9. American Saturday Night by Brad Paisley - 86
10. Welcome To Mali by Amadou & Mariam - 86
11. xx by The xx - 85
12. Psychic Chasms by Neon Indian - 85
13. Veckatimest by Grizzly Bear - 85
14. Journal For Plague Lovers by Manic Street Preachers - 85
15. Wind’s Poem by Mount Eerie - 85
16. Bitte Orca by Dirty Projectors - 85
17. Revolution by Miranda Lambert - 85
18. BLACKsummers’night by Maxwell - 85
19. Yonder Is The Clock by The Felice Brothers - 84
20. Electric Dirt by Levon Helm - 84
21. Imidiwan: Companions by Tinariwen - 84
22. Tarot Sport by Fuck Buttons – 84
23. Dark Days/Light Years by Super Furry Animals - 84
24. Heavy Ghost by DM Stith - 84
25. UGK 4 Life by UGK - 84
26. Two Dancers by Wild Beasts - 83
27. The Excitement Plan by Todd Snider - 83
28. Us by Brother Ali - 83
29. The Bright Mississippi by Allen Toussaint - 83
30. Hospice by The Antlers – 83

Amazon’s Best Books of 2009

Gr8List — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 07:15:04 +0000

Amazon.com’s Best Books of 2009 includes choices for the very best out of a year’s worth of reading. You’ll find great books for readers of all ages and interests in their top 100 editors’ and customers’ lists, as well as year-end top 10s in dozens of categories. Topping their editors’ list is Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann’s gorgeous and moving novel of New York City in the ’70s, set against the backdrop of Philippe Pettit’s Twin Tower tightrope crossing.

PC World 100 Best Products of 2009

Gr8List — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 06:52:15 +0000

PC World looked at many outstanding hardware, software, sites, and services, evaluating each one on its design, functionality, performance, and impact. Here is the cream of the crop, the 100 best of 2009. View the top 100…

App Store (iPhone apps) Site | PC World App Guide
Google Voice (telephony service) Full review
Intel X25-M Solid State Drive 160GB (internal storage device) More info | Check prices
Nikon D300s (digital camera) More info | Video | Check prices
Twitter (social media service) More info
Dell Latitude Z600 (laptop) Full review
Microsoft Bing (search engine) More info
Canon PowerShot SX200 IS (digital camera) Full review | Video | Check prices
The Beatles Rock Band by Harmonix (game) More info | Check prices
Samsung LN46B750U (HDTV) Full review | Check prices

The Top 30 Fashion Capitals of 2009

Gr8List — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 06:24:35 +0000

Milan has upended New York after a five year reign as the Top Fashion Capital in the Global Language Monitor’s annual global survey. This exclusive ranking is based upon GLM’s Predictive Quantities Index, a proprietary algorithm that tracks words and phrases in print and electronic media, on the Internet and throughout the blogosphere. The words and phrases are tracked in relation to their frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets. View the top thirty fashion capitals…

1. Milano (+3) – Not only overtakes New York but also Rome and Paris.
2. New York (-1) – Knocked out of Top Spot by Milano after a five-year run.
3. Paris (0) – No 1. in our hearts but No. 3 in the media.
4. Rome (-2) — The Eternal City still reigns strong.
5. London (0) – London remains the laggard of the Fashion Elite.
6. Los Angeles (0) – Holding its own at No. 6.
7. Hong Kong (+4) – Leaps over Sydney and Tokyo to seize the lead in Asia/Pacific.
8. Sao Paulo (+25) – A remarkable rise, now dominating Latin-America.
9. Sydney (-2) – Solidly in the Top 10 while Melbourne sinks.
10. Las Vegas (-2) – Intense media spotlight ensures a top ranking.

10 Best-Designed Intranets for 2010

Gr8List — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:52:07 +0000

The best designed intranets represent big companies (median size: 6,350 employees) with large amounts of documents and mission-critical applications such as sales force support. But most of the lessons from these winning designs apply to smaller companies as well. The list was selected by Jakob Nielsen, a leading web usability consultant. Read the report summary…

Enbridge, Inc., a leader in energy transportation and distribution in North America (Canada)
GE, a diversified technology, media, and financial services company (US)
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), a nonprofit medical research organization (US)
Huron Consulting Group, a consulting company (US)
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a NASA Center that manages robotic spacecraft exploration of Earth, the solar system, and the universe (US)
The MITRE Corporation, a not-for-profit organization managing four federally funded research and development centers (US)
SCANA Corp., a Fortune 500 energy-based holding company (US)
Trend Micro, Inc., a leader in Internet content security (Japan)
URS Corporation, a leading provider of engineering, construction, and technical services for public agencies and private sector companies (US)
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (Walmart), a retailer with more than 8,000 retail units under 53 different banners in 15 countries (US)

World’s Best Companies 2009

Gr8List — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:12:39 +0000

From Japanese electronics to Spanish textiles, the companies that made this list are thriving in the recession and preparing for beyond. As the economic outlook brightens, those that have worked hard to survive the tough times of the past year are best prepared to seize new opportunities. It is these enterprises that have risen to the top of the World’s Best Companies/Global Top 40 list, compiled for BusinessWeek by management consulting firm A.T. Kearney. View the full list…

1. Nintendo – Japan
2. Google – USA
3. Apple – USA
4. Doosan Heavy Industrie – South Korea
5. Hyundai Heavy Industries – South Korea
6. GDF Suez – France
7. MTN – South Africa
8. Monsanto – USA
9. Inditex – Spain
10. BHP Billiton – Australia

Pitchfork.com’s Best of Music Lists

Gr8List — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 06:52:17 +0000

Pitchfork Media offers dozens of “best-of” music lists – such as the best albums of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and the best songs of the 1960s and 2000s – as well as annual features detailing the best singles and albums of each year since 1999. View the lists…

100 Best Books of the Decade

Gr8List — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 06:06:18 +0000

The Times of London compiled the 100 best books of the decade. View the full list…

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (2003)
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama (2004)
Masterworks of the Classical Haida Mythtellers trans Robert Bringhurst (2002)
Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky (2006)
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell (2000)
Life of Pi by Yann Martel (2002)
Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth by Margaret Atwood (2008)
Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001)
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (2003)

Forbes Richest People In America

Gr8List — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 04:52:18 +0000

Forbes publishes an annual list of the 400 richest Americans. The Forbes 400 is a snapshot of wealth on Sept. 10, 2009. The minimum net worth for inclusion in this year’s rankings was USD 1.3 billion, up $300 million from last year. See the full list of 400. Or create your own list.

1. William Gates III
2. Warren Buffett
3. Lawrence Ellison
4. Christy Walton & family
5. Jim C. Walton
6. Alice Walton
7. S. Robson Walton
8. Michael Bloomberg
9. Charles Koch
10. David Koch

The World’s Most Powerful People

Gr8List — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 03:31:39 +0000

There are 67 slots on Forbes’ first ranking of the World’s Most Powerful People –one for every 100 million people on the planet. Barack Obama tops the list, thanks to his control of the world’s largest economy, military, and nuclear arsenal. Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have a combined net worth of $30 billion, and come in fifth. WalMart CEO Michael Duke runs the world’s largest retailer, with $401 billion in annual sales and 2 million employees — he comes in at number eight. And iconoclastic Apple CEO Steve Jobs ranks #57. View the full article…

The Best Free Fonts of 2009

Gr8List — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 02:50:56 +0000

WebDesignLedger.com collected some of the best free fonts from 2009. View the designs in WDL’s Freebies section…

Chunk
Calluna
Vegur
League Gothic
Sansation
Quicksand
Mentone
Serif Beta
Goudy Bookletter 1911
Titilium
Junction

TIME’s 25 Best Blogs 2009

Gr8List — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 02:36:14 +0000

TIME’s second annual list of the best blogs in the world, spanning politics, housekeeping, astronomy and everything in between. See the full list…

CNN Money’s Best Places to Live 2009

Gr8List — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 02:12:21 +0000

Which small towns in America have weathered the economic storm and continued to provide residents with affordable living, great educations, low crime and more? CNN Money outlined the top 100 in the 2009 Best Places to Live list powered by Onboard Informatics data. See the top 100…

1. Louisville, CO

2. Chanhassen, MN

3. Papillion, NE

4. Middleton, WI

5. Milton, MA

6. Warren, NJ

7. Keller, TX

8. Peachtree City, GA

9. Lake St. Louis, MO

10. Mukilteo, WA

US News Best Places to Live 2009

Gr8List — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 01:53:44 +0000

The “Best Places to Live,” selected by U.S. News editors, were chosen from 2,000 locations by examining factors including an area’s economy, cost of living, population, crime rate, and access to educational, cultural, and recreational opportunities. All cities offer strong economies, low living costs and ample, affordable recreational activities. Read the full article on USNews.com…

KAYAK’s Top 10 Travel Lists

Gr8List — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:13:17 +0000

KAYAK’S Traveler blog features dozens of travel-related top 10 lists. A recent sampling includes best airports, ten top haunted hotels, top bed & breakfast inns, best green hotels, best kids pools, best rooftop hotel pools, best new hotels of 2009, best big city bargains, and more. Visit Kayak.com Traveler for the lists…

TechCrunch’s Top Ten IPO Candidates For 2010

Gr8List — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 02:46:56 +0000

It’s been a long drought for IPOs, but venture capitalists and tech entrepreneurs are hopeful that 2010 will be the year they rain down on the Valley once gain. Below is TechCrunch’s list of the top ten IPO candidates for 2010 in the technology industry, after conducting an informal survey of top VCs and angel investors. These are the company names whispered about the most in the Valley and other tech circles. Read the full story…

1. Facebook
2. Zynga
3. LinkedIn
4. Glam Media
5. Demand Media
6. Gilt Groupe
7. Etsy
8. Yelp
9. Tesla Motors
10. Skype

TIME’s 50 Best Websites 2009

Gr8List — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 00:16:48 +0000

TIME picks its annual list of best Websites. Fifty offerings that are indispensable to navigating, enjoying yourself, shopping or just killing time on the Web. View the list on Time.com…

1. Flickr
2. California Coastline
3. Delicious
4. Metafilter
5. popurls
6. Twitter
7. Skype
8. Boing Boing
9. Academic Earth
10. OpenTable
11. Google
12. YouTube
13. Wolfram|Alpha
14. Hulu
15. Vimeo
16. Fora TV
17. Craiglook
18. Shop Goodwill
19. Amazon
20. Kayak
21. Netflix
22. Etsy
23. PropertyShark.com
24. Redfin
25. Wikipedia
26. Internet Archive
27. Kiva
28. ConsumerSearch
29. Metacritic
30. Pollster
31. Facebook
32. Pandora and Last.fm
33. Musicovery
34. Spotify
35. Supercook
36. Yelp
37. Visuwords
38. CouchSurfing
39. BabyNameWizard.com’s NameVoyager
40. Mint
41. TripIt
42. Aardvark
43. drop.io
44. Issuu
45. Photosynth
46. OMGPOP
47. WorldWideTelescope
48. Fonolo
49. Get High Now
50. Know Your Meme

Best Books of 2009: Barnes & Noble Editors’ Picks

Gr8List — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 18:07:05 +0000

The editors of the Barnes & Noble Review selected their favorite titles of the year — fiction, nonfiction, and beyond. View the reviews…

FICTION
* The Anthologist, by Nicholson Baker
* Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel
* Finch, by Jeff Vandermeer
* The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, by Lydia Davis
* White is for Withcing, by Helen Oyeyemi
* Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli
* Blame, by Michelle Huneven
* Fying, by Eric Kraft
* Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada
* Brothers, by Yu Hua

NONFICTION
* Lit, by Mary Karr
* The Age of Wonder, by Richard Holmes
* The Last Journey, by Darrell Griffin Jr. & Sr.
* Charles Dickens, by Michael Slater
* The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday, by Neil MacFarquhar
* My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness, by Adina Hoffman
* Somewhare Towards the End, by Diana Athill
* Banquet at Delmonicos, by Barry Werth
* Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, by David Eagleman
* Lords of Finance, by Liaquat Ahamed

BEYOND CATEGORY
* Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way, by Francis Mallmann and Peter Kaminsky
* Map As Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography, by Katharine Harmon and Gayle Clemans
* The Letters of Van Gogh: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition
* Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary
* The Red Book, by C .G. Jung
* Garner’s Modern American Usage, by Bryan Garner
* The Letters of Samuel Beckett 1929-1940
* The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957-1965, by Sam Stephenson and W. Eugene Smith
* Popular Obsessions, by Paul Nicklen
* Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City, by Eric W. Sanderson

Allure’s Best Beauty Products of 2009

Gr8List — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 06:30:21 +0000

Allure.com tested thousands of products to bring you the top 189 lipsticks, anti-aging creams, mascaras, concealers, defrizzers, and more. Here is the master list…

* Eyes
* Lips
* Base
* Body
* Nails
* Skin Care
* Cheap Thrills
* Best Splurges
* Natural Wonders
* Guy Stuff
* Hair
* Scent
* Tools
* Breakthroughs

Mediaweek.com’s Top Stories of 2009

Gr8List — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 03:16:03 +0000

2009 was a year of great economic and media industry upheaval—and Mediaweek.com brought readers thorough, up-to-date news coverage of all the ad-supported media industries. The downturn did not spare any specific medium—and as you’ll find on this report, the 2009 Top Ten Most-Read Stories on Mediaweek.com, all media are present.

1. Exclusive: Playboy Slashes Rate Base 38%
2. OK! Looks to Cash In on Michael Jackson Death Cover
3. FoxNews.com Rockets Nearly 50% in April
4. CNN.com, Facebook Team on Live Inauguration Stream
5. Twentieth TV Shows ‘Mike and Juliet’ the Door
6. Condé Nast Folds Domino
7. Nielsen: Casual Gamers Play Less, Come Back Often
8. AMC’s The Prisoner Plots to Tunnel Under DVR Viewing
9. Letterman Extends Late Night Streak Over Conan
10. Study: Twitter Audience Does Not Have A Return Policy

Coolest Book Covers of 2009

Gr8List — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 09:26:37 +0000

The Huffington Post compiled the best book covers of 2009. Books that have beautiful, thoughtful, or just plain cool designs. View the slideshow…

101 Best Websites for Writers

Gr8List — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:43:34 +0000

Writer’s Digest 11th annual list of Websites for writers offers a one-stop resource. They sifted through more than 2,700 nominations and pulled the best of the bunch. Read the full story…

The 2009 Categories:
* Agent Blogs
* Writing Communities
* Publishing Resources
* Jobs and Markets
* Creativity and Challenges
* Genres/Niches
* General Resources
* Fun for Writers

20 Best Steaks in America

Gr8List — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 06:37:21 +0000

Esquire.com compiled a definitive list of the twenty best steaks in America. Read the full story…

1. Palm, New York City
2. Jess & Jim’s, Kansas City, Missouri
3. The Prime Rib, Baltimore
4. Andrea’s, Metairie, Louisiana
5. Peter Luger, Brooklyn
6. Sammy’s Roumanian, New York City
7. Macelleria, New York City
8. El Raigón, San Francisco
9. Steak Frites, New York City
10. Churrascos, Houston

The Best Gadgets of 2009

Gr8List — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 05:53:06 +0000

Gizmodo’s list of favorite gadgets, from smartphones, laptops and cameras to vacuums, rechargeable batteries and earphones. More…

Best Product Rankings & Reviews

Gr8List — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 13:24:41 +0000

US News & World Report has launched RankingsAndReviews.com, a new site that condenses reviews of major consumer products into rankings and meta-reviews.

The 50 Best Business Blogs

Gr8List — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 15:18:26 +0000

Internet blogs are taking on big corporations and winning. As the bloggerati continue to set the agenda London’s Times Online provides a list of the 50 top blogs in the following categories: Economics, Banking & Finance, Construction & Property, Engineering, Health, Industrials, Leisure, Media & Marketing, Natural Resources, Retail, Law, Transport, Technology, Telecoms, and Utilities. View the full list…

The 40 Most Influential People in the Magazine Publishing Industry

Gr8List — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 16:18:07 +0000

Folio examined the entire industry, as well as a few markets that intersect it, for individuals who best represent an increasingly multifaceted media landscape. People who have demonstrated tangible proof of actionable ideas. This year’s list highlights the best in the industry from consumer, b-to-b, association, and regional publications. The Folio: 40 profiles C-Level visionaries, industry influencers, people under the radar, and director-level doers. View the list…

Folio also compiled a list of people to watch…

400 Magazine Blogs

Gr8List — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 13:46:45 +0000

Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) is the industry association for consumer magazines. Magazine.org’s blogroll features 400 blogs from member magazines. All blogs are classified under their magazine name on the left window. Once you select a magazine, a list of their current blogs will appear below next to an orange rss icon. The selected blog will display all of its current entries to the right with a preview of each selected entry in the window below it. Click on the title of the blog in the preview window on the next page to view the complete post…

(This handy tool was created using Grazr, an easy way to view information without having to follow links all over the Web.)

The Top 200 Albums of All Time

Gr8List — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 04:23:21 +0000

The National Association of Recording Merchandisers and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame unveiled the official list of the 200 albums and soundtracks that comprise the Definitive 200. See the full list…

1. Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
2. Pink Floyd – Dark Side Of The Moon
3. Michael Jackson – Thriller
4. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV
5. U2 – Joshua Tree
6. Rolling Stones – Exile On Main Street
7. Carole King – Tapestry
8. Bob Dylan – Highway ’61 Revisited
9. Beach Boys – Pet Sounds
10. Nirvana – Nevermind

The World’s 500 Largest Corporate Employers

Gr8List — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 20:19:28 +0000

Giant retailer Wal-Mart Stores, with 1.8 million employees, tops the first published list of the world’s 500 largest corporate employers. Home to nearly half of the companies on the list, the United States boasts the largest employers in 13 out of 28 industries, according to the study by My Global Career, a blog-based careers site for global workers and employers seeking global-ready talent. Links to each employer’s job site are included in this free directory of companies that employ more than 45 million workers around the world. Job seekers can search the list or browse it by rank (1-500), industry, country, or company name. View the full list…

1. Wal-Mart Stores, United States – 1,800,000 employees
2. Deutsche Post, Germany – 502,545 employees
3. Siemens Group, Germany – 461,000 employees
4. McDonald’s, United States – 447,000 employees
5. Carrefour, France – 440,479 employees
6. Compass Group, United Kingdom – 410,074 employees
7. United Parcel Service, United States – 407,000 employees
8. Gazprom, Russia – 396,571 employees
9. DaimlerChrysler, Germany – 382,724 employees
10. Hitachi, Japan – 355,879 employees

Best Movie Picks From New York Times Film Critics

Gr8List — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 04:33:12 +0000

Each week, the movie critics of The New York Times recommend a selection of films for the Movies section of NYTimes.com. The recommendations are based solely on that critic’s personal opinion of the film. Find out the best movies currently playing at your local theater, or out on DVD…

The 51 Best Magazines Ever

Gr8List — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 15:34:04 +0000

The editors of Good magazine have compiled a list of the top (smartest, prettiest, coolest, funniest, most Influential, mos t necessary, most Important, most essential, etc.) magazines ever. Check out all 51…

1. Esquire. Under Harold T.P. Hayes (1961-1973)
2. The New Yorker
3. Life. (1936-1972)
4. Playboy
5. The New York Times Magazine
6. Mad. Post comic book, before the death of founder William Gaines (1955-1992)
7. Spy. Until it was sold to fun-sponge Jean Pigozzi (1986-1991)
8. Wired. Early years until Conde Nast buyout (1993-1998)
9. Andy Warhol’s Interview. Until Warhol’s death (1969-1988)
10. Colors. The first 13 issues, under Tibor Kalman (1991-1996)

America’s Top 50 Salaries

Gr8List — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 05:50:32 +0000

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported the median salaries of America’s 50 highest-paying jobs. The following article from CareerBuilder discloses all 50 professions. As you may expect, surgeons and physicians dominate the top of list. Following is a list of the top 10 highest-paying non-medical jobs. View the full list of America’s top earning positions…

10. Chief Executives – $139,810
12. Airline Pilots, Copilots and Flight Engineers – $135,0400
15. Lawyers – $110,520
16. Air Traffic Controllers – $105,820
17. Engineering Managers – $105,470
18. Computer and Information Systems Managers – $102,360
19. Marketing Managers – $101,990
20. Astronomers – $101,360
21. Natural Sciences Managers – $99,140
22. Sales Managers – $98,510

List of Online Magazine Initiatives

Gr8List — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 04:42:09 +0000

Magazine Publishers of America is the industry association for consumer magazines. The MPA represents more than 240 domestic publishing companies with approximately 1,400 titles, from 80 international companies. They maintain a continually updated list of magazine website digital initiatives – everything from new site features, to partnerships, and redesigns, documented for the past two years. Check out the list…

The 50 Best Blocks in New York

Gr8List — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 06:50:04 +0000

Time Out New York’s first-ever ranking of the 50 best residential blocks in the city. View the full results…

1. South Portland Ave. between DeKalb and Lafayette Ave., Fort Greene, Brooklyn
2. Gramercy Park South between Park Ave. South and Irving Place, Gramercy Park
3. West 20th St. between Ninth and Tenth Ave., Chelsea
4. 45th Ave. between 21st and 23rd St., Long Island City, Queens
5. Convent Ave. between 143rd and 144th St., Sugar Hill
6. Montgomery Place bet. Prospect Park West & Eighth Ave., Park Slope, Brooklyn
7. Beck St. between Longwood Avenue and East 156th St., Longwood, Bronx
8. Coffey St. between Conover and Ferris St., Red Hook, Brooklyn
9. Charlton St. between Sixth Ave. and Varick St., Soho
10. West 78th St. between Columbus and Amsterdam Ave., Upper West Side

Fortune 500 Business Blogs

Gr8List — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 03:46:50 +0000

Two sites are collecting links to Fortune 500 companies that have business blogs (active public blogs by company employees about the company and its products).

Timeline of History: 60,000 BCE to the Present

Gr8List — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:43:42 +0000

Frank Smitha began writing the unbiased history of the world that appears on Fsmitha.com in 1987. His website contains a description of events and ideas from prehistory to the 21st century – stories that you can connect into a big picture. The timeline section linked here begins with 60,000 BCE (the Common Era is the period of measured time beginning with the year 1 on the Gregorian calendar) and continues to present day. Get ready to become the smartest person you know…

The 25 Most Stylish Films of All Time

Gr8List — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 20:03:36 +0000

When it comes down to it, it’s the big screen where fashions are immortalized. Not the runway, not the street. From Shaft to North by Northwest, here are the movies that will never go out of fashion. View the slideshow on Men.Style.com…

Three Days of the Condor – 1975
A Clockwork Orange – 1971
Purple Noon – 1960
North by Northwest – 1959
Trainspotting – 1996
Get Carter – 1970
Diner – 1982
Breathless – 1959
Stranger Than Paradise – 1984
Shaft – 1971
Badlands – 1973
Quadrophenia – 1979
Rushmore – 1998
A Hard Day’s Night – 1964
Shampoo – 1975
8 1/2 – 1963
Bullitt – 1968
American Gigolo – 1980
Reservoir Dogs – 1992
How to Steal a Million – 1966
Blowup – 1966
In the Mood for Love – 2000
The Godfather Part II – 1974
The Harder They Come – 1973
Ocean’s 11 – 1960

Elvis Costello’s Top 500 Albums

Gr8List — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 17:59:04 +0000

“Here are 500 albums that can only improve your life. Many will be quite familiar, others less so. It was impossible to choose just one title by Miles Davis, the Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Dylan, Mingus, etc. Sometimes an album contains just one indispensable song. Shot of Love may not be your favorite Bob Dylan record, but it might contain his best song: Every Grain of Sand. You will see that some very famous names are missing completely. There is nothing at all by Led Zeppelin, the Doors, Michael Jackson, or Sting. You may love them. They just don’t do it for me. There’s not too much disco or dance, except the mighty Chic. If you want something from Los Angeles in the early 70s, I suggest you purchase the first Jackson Browne record; it will save you buying all those Eagles albums. There is nothing to speak of from the 80s, the decade that music forgot, except for Robert Wyatt. Not many Divas, except for Callas and Aretha. There are probably songs being composed right now that will eclipse every entry on this list in somebody’s heart or mind. It is my experience that music is more like water than a rhinoceros. It doesn’t charge madly down one path. It runs away in every direction.” Check out the list….

Internet Retailer’s Top 50 Retail Sites 2007

Gr8List — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 04:09:17 +0000

Online video, live webcasts, social networking, customer reviews–these are the kinds of things that make this year’s Top 50 online etailers shine. Last year the best e-retailers were fine-tuning and adding some features. This year they’re bounding forward in ways that show how some retailers are more imaginative and more focused on bringing customers back for more…

View the winning sites within the following categories:

Top 10 Best Internet Acquisitions of All Time

Gr8List — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 04:11:38 +0000

From HipMojo.com, the ten “best” Internet acquisitions of all time. Read the full article…

1. News Corporation acquires MySpace-parent Intermix for $580M in May 2005
2. New York Times acquires About.com for $410M in February, 2005
3. Google acquires Sprinks in October 2003
4. Yahoo! acquires Overture for $1.63B in July, 2003
5. Yahoo! acquires Inktomi for $235M in December, 2002
6. AOL Time Warner acquires Advertising.com for $435M in June 2004
7. eBay acquires Paypal for $1.5B in 2002
8. Ask Jeeves acquires Interactive Search Holdings for $343M in March 2004
9. Microsoft acquires Hotmail for $400M in 1998
10. aQuantive acquires Razorfish for $160M in June 2004

Squidoo’s Top 100

Gr8List — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 03:31:35 +0000

Squidoo is a website designed to make it easy for anyone to set up a single page on a topic he or she knows or cares a lot about. Their goal is to bring the power of recommendation to search. Squidoo is a network of user-generated lenses –single pages that highlights one person’s point of view, recommendations, or expertise. Lenses can be about anything, such as ideas, people or places, hobbies and sports, pets or products, philosophy, and politics. A lensmaster uses the tools available online to provide links, feeds, abstracts, and lists to users who are trying to make sense of a topic. For example, a single lens could point to Flickr photos, Google maps, blogs, eBay auctions, YouTube videos, and other links. Check out Squidoo’s list of top 100 recommendations…

The World’s Best TV Commericals of 2006

Gr8List — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 04:50:22 +0000

AdForum is a leading online resource for information on advertising agencies and advertising creative work from around the world. Their database contains a large collection of the world’s best TV, print, internet, outdoor and radio ads. View video of the top TV commercials of 2006, including clips from Canada, Japan, United States, Australia, Belgium, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Israel, China, Brazil, Argentina, and Norway…

10 Hot Jobs for 2007

Gr8List — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 04:47:12 +0000

Fast Company spoke with trend experts to compile a list of the top 10 professions that will be in high demand in 2007…

1. Art Directors
2. Buyers and Purchasing Agents
3. Experience Retail Designers
4. Medical Researchers
5. News Analysts, Reporters, and Bloggers
6. Security Systems Engineers
7. Talent Agents
8. Urban Planners
9. Viral Marketers and Media Promoters
10. Web Designers

The Most Popular Web Content Widgets

Gr8List — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 04:11:40 +0000

A web widget is a small piece of interactive content (like a scorebox, music player, or game) that can be dynamically embedded into a web page. Widgets allow for a new level of expression and creativity as web publishers use them to create value and interest in their blogs, social networks, and web sites. Here are the most popular web widgets in the Widgetbox directory…

The New York Times 10 Best Books of 2006

Gr8List — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 07:40:37 +0000

Fiction:

Absurdistan. By Gary Shteyngart
The Collected Stories Of Amy Hempel. By Amy Hempel
The Emperor’s Children. By Claire Messud
The Lay Of The Land. By Richard Ford
Special Topics In Calamity Physics. By Marisha Pessl

Nonfiction:

Falling Through The Earth. By Danielle Trussoni
The Looming Tower. By Lawrence Wright
Mayflower. By Nathaniel Philbrick
The Omnivore’s Dilemma. By Michael Pollan
The Places In Between. By Rory Stewart

All of VH1′s “The Greatest” Lists

Gr8List — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 07:11:38 +0000

VH1′s Greatest series presents rankings of the best songs, artists, albums, and everything else in rock ‘n’ roll. Each countdown is revealed by a celebrity host, and through new interviews and classic footage, you’ll also learn the reasons behind the experts’ choices. View all “The Greatest” countdown lists…

The Top News Sites of 2006

Gr8List — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 06:44:34 +0000

Newsknife.com rates news sites based on relevance analysis within the main Google News site. These ratings are based on a sample of 438,330 individual listings at Google News by 4504 sites for 1768 news items during 2006…

1. ABC News
2. New York Times
3. Reuters
4. Washington Post
5. Times Online, UK
6. Forbes
7. Guardian Unlimited, UK
8. Voice of America
9. Christian Science Monitor
10. International Herald Tribune
11. Bloomberg
12. CNN

AskMen.com’s Top 49 Men

Gr8List — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 05:44:06 +0000

The Top 49 Men of 2006 is the product of more than one million votes cast by AskMen.com readers. View the full rankings, and profiles of each man who made the list…

1. George Clooney
2. Jay-Z
3. Richard Branson
4. Lance Armstrong
5. Tom Ford
6. Jerry Bruckheimer
7. Johnny Depp
8. David Beckham
9. Jorge Perez
10. Bill Clinton

Brightcove’s Top 100 Buzz Videos

Gr8List — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 05:11:59 +0000

Brightcove is an Internet TV service used by content owners, consumers, web publishers, and advertisers. Watch their most popular 100 videos…

Rolling Stone’s 50 Greatest Artists of All Time

Gr8List — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 05:00:35 +0000

The Immortals began with the creation of a panel of fifty-five top musicians, historians, industry executives and critics, selected by the editors of Rolling Stone. Voters were asked to pick, in order of preference, the twenty artists they deemed to be the most significant and influential of rock’s first fifty years, those whose work continues to have an impact today. More than 125 artists were named. The ballots were tabulated according to a weighted point system that was overseen by the international accounting firm Ernst & Young.

Rolling Stone then asked a blue-ribbon collection of singers, musicians and producers to explore and describe the importance and impact of these immortals: on the writers’ own work and personal lives; on history and society at large; and on generations to come. Van Morrison repays a lifetime of soulful debt to Ray Charles. Robbie Robertson describes Bob Dylan typing out his lyrics as they made Blonde on Blonde. Steven Van Zandt salutes the original R&B genius of the Rolling Stones and their undiminished prowess forty years later. Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers pays homage to the raw power and fiercely independent spirit of Neil Young. These are the musicians and bands who gave us everything they had, regardless of the rewards, often against insurmountable odds…

New York Magazine’s Best Books of 2006

Gr8List — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 04:39:52 +0000

1.The Road, By Cormac McCarthy
2. The Looming Tower, By Lawrence Wright
3. The View from Castle Rock, By Alice Munro
4. State of Denial, By Bob Woodward
5. Suite Francaise, By Irene Nemirovsky
6. At Canaan’s Edge, By Taylor Branch
7. Fun Home, By Alison Bechdel
8. The Best of All Possible Worlds: Mathematics and Destiny, By Ivar Ekeland
9. Special Topics in Calamity Physics, By Marisha Pessl
10. The Emperor’s Children, By Claire Messud

100 Best Companies to Work For 2007

Gr8List — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 04:01:37 +0000

Google is ranked No. 1 in Fortune’s 10th annual 100 Best Companies to Work For list. Genentech, a biotech company, is No. 2 on the list, followed by Wegmans Food Markets, which has been on the list all 10 years. Container Store and Whole Foods Market round out the top five. The 100 Best Companies to Work For list is compiled by Robert Levering and Milton Moskowitz of the Great Place to Work Institute in San Francisco. More than 105,000 employees from 446 companies responded to a 57-question survey related to the annual report. See the full list…

The 2006 Weblog Award Winners

Gr8List — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 03:51:37 +0000

The Weblog Awards are the world’s largest blog competition, with over 525,000 votes cast in the 2006 edition for finalists in 45 categories. Nominations ended November 24, and voting was conducted between December 7 and December 15. Final results were announced Dec. 18, 2006. View the full list here…

The top winner for 2006 was political blog DailyKos.com.

The Most Popular Cameras Used on Flickr

Gr8List — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 02:51:18 +0000

Flickr’s “Camera Finder” shows the number of members who have uploaded at least one photo with a particular camera on a given day over the last year. The graph lines moving up or down indicates a change in the camera’s popularity relative to all other cameras used by Flickr members. The graphs are accurate to the extent that Flickr can automatically detect the camera used to take the photo (about 2/3rds of the time). Discover the most popular cameras used on Flickr…

The 50 Greatest Cartoons of All-Time

Gr8List — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 01:39:05 +0000

The 50 Greatest Cartoons was a 1994 book by animation historian Jerry Beck that compiled a list of the 50 greatest animated cartoons of all-time as voted upon by 1,000 animation industry professionals. Details can be found on Wikipedia…

CityRag found links to online videos for many of the cartoons. The top ten are listed below. See all 50 animated cartoons…

1. What’s Opera, Doc? (1957)
2. Duck Amuck (1953)
3. The Band Concert (1935)
4. Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century (1953)
5. One Froggy Evening (1956)
6. Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)
7. Red Hot Riding Hood (1943)
8. Porky in Wackyland (1938)
9. Gerald McBoing-Boing (1951)
10. King Size Canary (1947)

43 Entrepreneurs Who Are Changing The World

Gr8List — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 01:15:27 +0000

The 4 3 organi zations that received the Fast Company/Monitor Group Social Capitalist Awards for 2007 have found a b etter way to do good: They’re using the disciplines of the corporate world to tackle daunting social problems. The Social Capitalist Awards define strong performance as a combination of both social impact and organizational effectiveness. This performance is represented by five critical components: Social Impact, Aspiration & Growth , Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Sustainability. The underlying theme is the organization’s ability to analyze tough social and organizational challenges and to craft solutions that create significant improvements over the status quo. Read the full article…

And check out the list of award winning organizations…

Leonardo DiCaprio’s 10 Favorite Movies

Gr8List — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 00:36:08 +0000

From a special RED edition of London’s newspaper, The Independent. Read the full article…

1.) Bicycle Thieves – 1948
2.) Taxi Driver – 1976
3.) Lawrence of Arabia – 1962
4.) 8 1/2 – 1963
5.) The Third Man – 1949
6.) Yojimbo – 1961
7.) Manhattan – 1979
8.) Sunset Boulevard – 1950
9.) The Shining – 1980
10.) East of Eden – 1955

Top Web 2.0 Winners

Gr8List — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 23:26:00 +0000

Following is a list of Web 2.0 winners, according to Wired, Wired’s Monkey Bites blog, and Wisdump.com.

Expedia.com’s Top Travel Destinations

Gr8List — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 20:26:47 +0000

101 Classic Christmas Videos

Gr8List — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 03:55:25 +0000

FanPop.com has collected 101 classic holiday specials, and Christmas videos. View the top 5 in the “hall of fame” below, then check out the full list…

1. It’s a Wonderful Life (click to watch)
2. A Charlie Brown Christmas (click to watch)
3. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (click to watch)
4. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (click to watch)
5. Frosty the Snowman (click to watch)

Business Schools with the Best Career Prospects

Gr8List — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 02:17:42 +0000

Students who pursue an MBA enjoy a major return on their investment. To determine the schools on this list, The Princeton Reivew looked at institutional data concerning job placement and average starting salary of students after graduation. According to The Princeton Review’s annual survey of 18,000 business school students at the nation’s Best 282 Business Schools, these ten schools offer their students the best career prospects…

1. Stanford University (Stanford, California)
2. University of Chicago (Chicago, Illinois)
3. University of California–Berkeley (Berkeley, California)
4. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor (Ann Arbor, Michigan)
5. Columbia University (New York, New York)
6. University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
7. New York University (New York, New York)
8. Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
9. University of Californi–Los Angeles (Los Angeles, California)
10. Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois)

The Most Influential Figures in American History

Gr8List — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 01:29:14 +0000

The Atlantic has published a list of the top 100 influential figures in American history. It was compiled by asking a panel of ten historians to each produce a list, and the lists were then merged. Check out the full list…

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. George Washington
3. Thomas Jefferson
4. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
5. Alexander Hamilton
6. Benjamin Franklin
7. John Marshall
8. Martin Luther King Jr.
9. Thomas Edison
10. Woodrow Wilson

The New York Times Top 100 Books of 2006

Gr8List — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 01:17:43 +0000

100 Notable Books of the Year from The New York Times Book Review. The Book Review has selected this list from books reviewed since the Holiday Books issue of Dec. 4, 2005. View the top fiction, poetry and nonfiction books of 2006…

The Top 100 Cover Songs

Gr8List — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 05:32:55 +0000

Countdown the Top 100 Cover Songs, according to retroCRUSH.com, with accompanying video clips on YouTube…

1) “My Way” by Sid Vicious
Original Artist: Frank Sinatra

2) “Proud Mary” by Ike and Tina Turner
Original Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival

3) “Hurt” by Johnny Cash
Original Artist: Nine Inch Nails

4) “Satisfaction” by Devo
Original Artist: The Rolling Stones

5) “Respect” by Aretha Franklin
Original Artist: Otis Redding

6) “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”
by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Original Artist: Marvin Gaye/Gladys Knight

7) “Just A Gigolo” by David Lee Roth
Original Artist: Louie Prima

“A Little Help From My Friends” by Joe Cocker
Original Artist: The Beatles

9) “All Along The Watchtower” by Jimi Hendrix
Original Artist: Bob Dylan

10) “A Natural Woman” by Carole King
Original Artist: Aretha Franklin

Oprah’s Favorite Things

Gr8List — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 04:22:27 +0000

The ultimate gift list. Categories include: Beauty and Body Care, Books and Music, Food Favorites, Children, Home, Pets, High Tech Discoveries, and What to Wear. Check out Oprah’s Favorite Things…

Wine Spectator’s Top 100 Wines of 2006

Gr8List — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 06:18:04 +0000

Each year, Wine Spectator magazine editors survey the wines reviewed during the calendar year and select the most exciting wines for the Top 100. The wines chosen are based on four criteria: quality, value, availability, and “excitement.”

In 2006, Wine Spectator reviewed more than 13,500 wines from around the world in blind tastings. More than 2,700 of them earned outstanding ratings (90 points or higher on the 100-point scale), qualifying them for the initial pool of candidates. Thirteen countries are represented in the 2006 list, making this the most diverse group in the history of the Top 100, which debuted in 1988. The average score of the group is 93 points, while the average price is $49. View the top 100 wines…

TIME’s Top 100 Albums of All Time

Gr8List — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 05:28:00 +0000

A list of the 100 greatest and most influential albums was recently compiled by Time magazine music critics. The Beatles have five albums on the list, more than any other group. Bob Dylan leads all male artists with three and Aretha Franklin leads the women with two. Elvis Presley is in there. So’s Eminem, Radiohead, the Stones, Kanye West, Michael Jackson, Nirvana, Bruce Springsteen, even the Plastic Ono Band. But nothing by Pink Floyd. Not even “Dark Side of the Moon,” which is one of the best-selling albums of all time. Other prominent no-shows — The Doors, and Elvis Costello. View the complete list…

MSN’s Top 100 Music Videos

Gr8List — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 04:31:42 +0000

View the top 100 music videos popular with MSN.com visitors. Requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, Microsoft Media Player 10, and Macromedia Flash 6…

The Daily Reel’s Top 10 New Videos

Gr8List — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 14:47:11 +0000

With all of the buzz surrounding web video, it’s surprisingly difficult to find a good movie online. YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo’s “The 9” – can show you what’s popular through their respective ranking systems. But how can you-the-viewer ferret out what is worth watching?

The Daily Reel showcases the best in online video. They sift through millions of clips, find quality content, and show you what you need to watch. TDR assembled a team of film and TV critics, pop culture commentators and online mavens from traditional and online media to find the best broadband videos. Their contributors come from The New York Times, Variety, The Village Voice, Filmmaker Magazine, The Austin Chronicle, and more. Check out The Daily Reel’s top 10 new videos…

Martha Stewart’s 20 Essential Kitchen Tools

Gr8List — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 14:05:25 +0000

The Martha Stewart Show shared a list of 20 essential tools in her kitchen. From baking to cooking to preparing, each tool will make you more efficient in the kitchen. View all 20 tools…

Watch a video clip of Martha using each tool…

The Best Magazine Covers of the Year

Gr8List — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 04:07:15 +0000

The best magazine covers of the year were unveiled today at the American Magazine Conference, by Cynthia Leive, President of the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) and Editor-in-Chief of Glamour, and Marlene Kahan, ASME’s Executive Director. The conference, a premier industry event attended by executive-level magazine publishers and editors, as well as the press, is hosted by Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) and ASME. Eligible cover dates of entries ranged from August 1, 2005, to July 31, 2006. View the full list of winning magazine covers…

Cover of the Year – “Flood in the Oval Office,” The New Yorker
Best Celebrity Covers (tie) – Julianne Moore in Harper’s Bazaar; Busta Rhymes in VIBE
Best News Cover – “Watch Your Back Mountain,” The New Yorker
Best Concept Cover – “The End of Cowboy Diplomacy,” TIME
Best Fashion Cover – 2005 Style Issue, Departures
Best Service Cover – 2006 Fitness Issue, Time Out New York
Best Cover Line – “Rocket Man,” The Economist

885 Greatest Music Artists, Albums, and Songs

Gr8List — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 02:47:11 +0000

Philadelphia-based radio station WXPN offers a countdown of the 885 greatest music artists of all time, as voted by their listening audience. View the full list…

1. The Beatles
2. Bob Dylan
3. Rolling Stones
4. Bruce Springsteen
5. U2
6. Led Zeppelin
7. Greaful Dead
8. Neil Young
9. Pink Floyd
10. Joni Mitchell

WXPN also features a list of the 885 all-time greatest albums. The top ten is below. Check out the next 875 albums…

1. Beatles – Abbey Road 1969
2. Beatles – Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band 1967
3. Pink Floyd – Dark Side Of The Moon 1973
4. Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run 1975
5. Bob Dylan – Blood On The Tracks 1975
6. Beatles – White Alblum, The 1968
7. U2 – Joshua Tree 1987
8. Clash – London Calling 1979
9. Beatles – Revolver 1966
10. Beatles – Rubber Soul 1965

And finally, the 885 greatest songs of all time…

The 101 Most Influential Fictional Characters

Gr8List — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 06:03:31 +0000

In their new book, The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived, Allan Lazar, Dan Karlan and Jeremy Salter ranked characters of myth, legends, television, and movies based on how greatly they’ve affected society. These cultural icons exist only in the imagination. Folks like Batman (No. 60), Cinderella (No. 26), Santa Claus (No. 4), Luke Skywalker (No. 85), Mickey Mouse (No. 18), G.I. Joe (No. 48) and Barbie (No. 43). Check out the full list of the top 101…

1. The Marlboro Man
2. Big Brother
3. King Arthur
4. Santa Claus (St. Nick)
5. Hamlet
6. Dr. Frankenstein’s Monster
7. Siegfried
8. Sherlock Holmes
9. Romeo and Juliet
10. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Top 5 All-Purpose Laptops

Gr8List — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 16:56:08 +0000

These laptops can do it all and are a great choice for most notebook users. Read the full reviews from PCWorld…

1. HP Pavilion dv5000t
2. HP Pavilion dv5000z
3. Lenovo 3000 C100
4. Lenovo ThinkPad R60
5. HP Pavilion dv2000t

The Top 40 Music Moments in Film History

Gr8List — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 04:00:16 +0000

Bullz-Eye.com recently polled all of their movie and music writers to get their favorite uses of pop songs in movies. Criteria: The song couldn’t have been written specifically for the film or have made its debut on the film’s soundtrack. Countdown the top 40 pop songs used in movies, and view the video clips…

1. “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Queen — Wayne’s World
2. “In Your Eyes,” Peter Gabriel — Say Anything
3. “Twist and Shout,” The Beatles — Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
4. “Damn It Feels Good 2 Be A Gangsta,” The Geto Boys — Office Space
5. “Tiny Dancer,” Elton John — Almost Famous
6. “Stuck in the Middle with You,” Stealer’s Wheel — Reservoir Dogs
7. “Shout,” Otis Day & the Knights — Animal House
8. “Moving in Stereo,” The Cars — Fast Times at Ridgemont High
9. “The End,” The Doors — Apocalypse Now
10. “Try a Little Tenderness,” Otis Redding — Pretty in Pink

10 Great Culinary Adventures

Gr8List — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 06:56:27 +0000

Love food, will travel. If experimenting with regional foods is your favorite part of international travel, check out the Food Network’s list of ten gourmet getaways…

1. Barcelona, Spain
2. Biarritz, France
3. Cape Town, South Africa
4. Dublin, Ireland
5. Edinburgh, Scotland
6. Ko Samui, Thailand
7. Maui, Hawaii
8. Oaxaca, Mexico
9. San Juan, Puerto Rico
10. Vancouver, British Columbia

Top 100 Companies for Working Moms – 2006

Gr8List — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 04:57:11 +0000

For the 21st year, Working Mother has complied a report on the family-friendliest companies in America. In compiling the report, the magazine solicited applications consisting of 550 questions. Working Mother used five main criteria as the basis for its judgments: flexibility, leave time for new parents, child care, elder care and the number of women occupying top jobs. The top 10 companies that best satisfied the five criteria were: Abbott Laboratories; Bon Secours Richmond Health System; Ernst & Young LLP; HSBC USA Inc.; IBM Corp.; JPMorgan Chase & Co.; Patagonia Inc.; PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP; Principal Financial Group, and S.C. Johnson & Son Inc. View the full list of 100 best companies…

30 Things Everyone Should Know How To Do

Gr8List — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 04:06:24 +0000

Do you know the best way to carve a turkey or remove a wine, wax, or grease stain from a tablecloth or shirt? What about the most efficient way to paint a room? Or the proper way to tie a tie? Martha Stewart assembled all 30 hints and techniques in one tidy booklet. Click Here (1.1mb PDF file) to download them all…

Watch video clips of Martha demonstrating each of the “30 Things.”

Entertainment Weekly’s 50 Best High School Movies

Gr8List — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 03:55:26 +0000

Entertainment Weekly magazine recently assembled their picks for the 50 best high school movies. The top 10 films are listed below. Check out EW.com for details about all 50…

1. The Breakfast Club (1985)
2. Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
3. Dazed and Confused (1993)
4. Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
5. Heathers (1989)
6. American Graffiti (1973)
7. Clueless (1995)
8. Boyz N the Hood (1991)
9. Election (1999)
10. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

10 Great B2B Web Sites 2006

Gr8List — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 04:44:33 +0000

Each year, BtoBOnline.com provides a behind-the-scenes look at 10 b-to-b Web sites that excel at communicating with customers and prospects. These sites offer in-depth information about products, services and the company. They are easy to navigate, enabling users to find what they want quickly and efficiently. Their design is clean and embodies the corporate brand. Finally, they allow users to accomplish business-oriented tasks, whether it’s managing a project or making a purchase.

Accenture
Bank of America
Boston Scientific
CA.com
DHL.com
Gates.com
Grainger.com
Steelcase.com
Sun.com
USG.com

The Best Spas in the World

Gr8List — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 03:48:11 +0000

Readers of Spa Finder publications and the Spafinder.com Web site have chosen Arizona’s Miraval, Life in Balance as their “favorite spa” in North America for 2006. Other favorites around the world were Sante Winelands Hotel and Wellness Center in Paarl, South Africa; Chiva-Som in Hua Hin, Thailand; Brenner’s Park Hotel & Spa in Baaden-Baaden, Germany, and the Kurotel Longevity Center and Spa in Gramado, Brazil. View all the award winners, by country or category…

Adweek’s Website Hot List 2006

Gr8List — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 03:14:47 +0000

To determine this year’s Hot List list, Adweek evaluated sites that create content, as opposed to aggregating it. The top ten list includes four sites that rely, for the most part or in whole, on user-generated content, the biggest online trend advertisers currently face. Adweek reviewed data on approximately 400 sites from Nielsen/NetRatings AdRelevance. They looked for growth over the past six months in unique users or time spent per person, and also invited several interactive media directors and clients to weigh in, giving their thoughts on which sites they believe are doing it right. The final list mirrors what is happening on the Web: community sites mix with traditional media properties. Some of the oldest sites stand side-by-side with the newest. Download Adweek’s Web Site Hot List PDF…

1. YouTube
2. MySpace
3. The Weather Channel
4. TMZ.com
5. BusinessWeek.com
6. Heavy.com
7. MLB.com
8. Cartoon Network
9. ESPN.com
10. Facebook

The World’s Most Talked About Videos

Gr8List — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 02:17:56 +0000

ViralVideoChart.com scans several million blogs a day to see which online videos people are talking about the most. They look for references to videos on the three most influential video sharing sites: YouTube, Google Video and MySpace. Viral Video Chart counts the number of times each video is linked to and the number of times each video is embedded. Each morning they publish a list of the 25 videos that generated the most buzz over the previous day. Check out the hottest videos…

Top 55 Places to Start a New Career

Gr8List — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 18:55:43 +0000

The Walt Disney Co. landed the No. 1 spot on BusinessWeek’s “Best Places to Launch a Career” ranking. Disney’s strong on-campus recruiting, solid benefits, and collaborative culture helped put the entertainment giant at the head of the BusinessWeek ranking, which identifies top employers for new college graduates. BusinessWeek analyzed feedback from students, college career counselors, and employers to reveal which companies offer the biggest advantages for entry-level employees, such as the highest pay, the most rapid advancement, and the best training programs. Visit BusinessWeek.com for the full top 55 rankings, and profiles of each employer…

1. Walt Disney
2. Lockheed Martin
3. Deloitte & Touche
4. Goldman Sachs
5. Enterprise Rent-A-Car
6. State Department
7. Raytheon
8. General Electric
9. JPMorgan
10. Abbott Labs

100 Best Events in North America 2007

Gr8List — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 03:16:45 +0000

The American Bus Association’s Top 100 Events in North America is an annual compendium of the best events for group travel in the United States and Canada. Each spring, a committee of ABA-member motorcoach and tour operators selects the top 100 events for the subsequent year; the list is unveiled in September. Winners are chosen from hundreds of celebrations, festivals, fairs, commemorative events, and more that have been nominated by state tourism offices and local and regional CVBs. Check out the 2007 list…