Resources of the Week: We Help You Shop!
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor
Not that we encourage rampant consumerism here on ResourceShelf, but we know that most folks are doing more shopping this month than they normally do the rest of the year. So we're offering a round-up of some of our favorite resources for product information and more, some of which have been posted on RS before.
Whether you're preparing to buy a car, a computer, or even a new toy for your child, it's important to conduct some background checks and do your research on the product beforehand. Gas mileage, recalls and reliability are just a few issues to consider. Where can you find that sort of information? Below is a large list of sites that offer real customer feedback on practically every product out there.
A fabulous annotated list of sites, grouped by category -- automotive, books/movies, food/dining, electronics, apartments/real estate, entertainment/lifestyle, clothing/beauty, toys/video games, pharmaceuticals, colleges/universities, travel, computers/accessories.
We believe that making a satisfying purchase or giving a thoughtful gift is a matter of getting the right shopping advice from the right person.
That's why on Lootist, people looking for great products can get recommendations from real-world specialists. This guidance comes in handy when you know who you’re shopping for, but not necessarily what you’re shopping for. For instance, if you’re looking for a gift for a friend who enjoys cooking, wouldn’t it be helpful to get shopping advice from a professional chef?
So who are our specialists? All the product recommendations on Lootist are submitted by our community, which is made up of real people, like you. We display every specialist’s qualifications, and the endorsements he or she has received from others in the community.
Shopping 2.0 here, folks. Benefit from recommendations by folks who probably know more than you about a particular type of item, and contribute whatever expertise you have to offer. Categories covered here:
+ Retrevo ("Consumer Electronics Reviews, Product Manuals, Guides and Deals")
How to use Retrevo depends on what you want to do. We can help you find that right product, new usage tips or troubleshooting and support answers - including taking you directly to the specific page in a pdf manual! Our goal is to give you answers for all your electronics needs from before you buy to after you've had the product for years, and everything in between. Retrevo is the place to help you enjoy the experience of electronics products.
Click around a bit and you'll find buying guides for things like HDTVs, GPS units, color printers and much more. Especially cool here -- if you've lost the instruction manual for a consumer electronics product you already own, type its name into the search box and the results page offers links to product manuals on the righthand side.
We constantly monitor the web, looking for unannounced sales, store specials, and the most economical prices on the hottest products. We seek out the latest and most compelling online bargains and bring them directly to you.
On Dealhack, you'll find specials, coupons, rebates, buyer's guides and lots of cool stuff. We've organized the site so you can search for something specific or just browse.
This site is centered around a constantly updated blog. We highly recommend keeping up with it via RSS; you'll find subscription buttons on the righthand side. And the savvy Web shopper will appreciate the large section of online coupon codes.
It's ALWAYS worth checking for these codes when shopping online. Find something you like at an online retailer? Open up another browser window and look for that retailer's current codes, which can net you discounts, free shipping, bonus products and more. Rather than using a general Web engine to find these -- spam and link farms abound -- try some of the sites that aggregate this information, like Dealhack and:
+ DODTracker.com ("Real-time Tracking of Every Deal of the Day on the Web")
Here you'll find up-to-the-minute item, pricing, and availability information on "one-a-day" sites such as Woot.com and "daily deal" offers from retailers such as Amazon.com. We scour the web for offers, bringing you every "deal of the day" offer there is on the web.
This is another site most conveniently monitored via RSS. Compulsive shoppers beware.
Amazon offers tons of deals, rebates, and coupons but weaving through the endless pages has just got easier. Brand Name Coupons brings the easiest way to find the best deals on Amazon. The following links will allow you to find deals searching Amazon.com for %off off deals (90%off, 80%off,etc.). All the items are arranged according to reviews and bestselling to assure buyers of quality products from trusted sellers.
This jewel is located on a site called Brand Name Coupons -- which, despite the name, is not really a great place to find online coupon codes. But Amazon Deal Search is clever and couldn't be easier to use. For each of the product categories on Amazon.com, there are links ranging from 10% off to 90% off. Just click through to check out the items currently on sale.
A family of resources to help information workers be more effective, raise the value of information in their organisations and contribute to success. Read more »
Recently I have found myself cooing over visualisation maps (and heat maps) of health and well being resources. The content rich data is overlayed with mapping technologies, and some interesting themes and patterns are emerging.
A lot of the talk around social media in the last year has been around information overload. Social media has provided us with new and exciting ways to create content. But it has also meant learning new ways to manage and engage with social media tools. Are we teetering on the edge of an information overload precipice?
Information overload is a figment of your imagination. Or a failure of your filter. Or a symptom of your technological submissiveness. Depends on who you ask.
What if you had to sort through 3.5 million articles and social media posts a day and try to pull out the most relevant items for your organisation? What if you then had to cobble it all together into something readable for your top groups and executives in your organisation?
Alacra Compliance saves time by aggregating information from both free and fee-based sources and enabling users to conduct an accurate federated search across these sources (coined “simultaneous search” by Alacra).
FreePint Family
Quilting big data threads
The fallacy of information overload
Information overload: fact, fantasy or filter failure? 
