Silly Sites

The world loves Wikipedia, flocks to Flickr, and checks in Facebook or surfs into Nokia’s Ovi.

And why not? Sites like them harness collective knowledge, promote interaction and communication, and improve the more you use them.

Unfortunately, not every website is a winner. A lot are vague, pointless, or just plain silly. How do you identify a dumb site? First, the site’s mission statement must be impenetrable. Second, the site must solve a problem that has been solved a million times already or didn’t need solving in the first place. Third, its name must love the letter "r" but eschew vowels (Drivl, Grazr, Hngry).

Here are some of the silliest sites I’ve seen so far:

Blabberize (www.blabberize.com)

If you were a venture capitalist and some supposed Web visionaries came to you with a home page dominated by an animated picture of a talking alpaca, wouldn’t that in itself be enough to make you say "No thanks"? Apparently not in the case of Blabberize, which lets users add audio and animate the mouths in pictures. At least it’s entertaining, right?

BillMonk (www.billmonk.com)

Let’s say you owe a friend some money and you ask him for the money but friend says that the debt has been paid. How embarrassing! If you were using BillMonk -- "a free service that makes it easy to track expenses between friends, and to settle them up instantly online" -- you wouldn’t be in this fix. According to its creators, BillMonk is particularly popular with roommates, college students, and other folks who can’t communicate via vocal cords or post its.

Blippr (www.blippr.com)

The Short Attention Span Theater isn’t gone -- it just moved to the Web. I Blippr, for example, lets you review movies, books, games, and so on, in 160 characters or less. This setup results in such trenchant appraisals as "Some dude eats this fast food joint every single day until he gets fat and becomes really sick" ("Super Size Me") and "this is a fine specimen of bookage" ("The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy").

FoodFeed (www.foodfeed.us)

"Had donuts for the past week and now I even see them in my dreams." Don’t keep such morsels to yourself. Thanks to FoodFeed, you can share your eating habits with the world! Mike in Utah hoovered 2 footlongs ten minutes ago. Ryan in Canada just wolfed down a huge bowl of ice cream and Tonito in Makati just ate something complicated. Bon Apetit!

Predictify (www.predictify.com)

Exercise your inner Nostradamus. At Predictify, you don’t just read the news -- you predict it! If you’re accurate, you can earn real money. But who’s coughing up the dough? "Premium question-askers" who could be vendors, marketing firms, pollsters, or individuals who truly want to know "Will Paris Hilton’s energy plan be adopted wholly or partially by Congress this year?" In typical Web 2.0 fashion, you can connect with other members, compare rankings, challenge their predictions, and so on. The convoluted rules, however, may send you running back to Greedy or Needy.

Savvy Auntie (www.savvyauntie.com)

There’s a first for everything - eating frog’s legs, jumping off the cliff at Tali, being an Aunt. Enter Savvy Auntie, a network for women who desperately need tips on being an aunt or grandmother. Just incase you don’t trust your relatives who help you along the way, in the site you learn how to sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" or how to throw a "High School Musical" theme party. You can also tap into Auntiepedia, a wiki that boasted two postings when I checked. Uncles need not apply, as they are superfluous.

BarbieGirls (www.barbiegirls.com)

Want to raise a good little consumer? BarbieGirls.com is the place for your princess to log in and get down. With the free account, she can design her virtual character, decorate her room, chat with new friends, and visit their rooms. But step up to VIP membership ($ 6 per month), and we’re into amassing virtual purses and jewelry, sending gifts, staging a fashion show, getting a special tiara and hairstyle, and, of course, earning Barbie-bucks. Paris Hilton in the making? Loves it.