Filed under: Fun, Google, Social Software, Beta, web 2.0

OK, here’s the situation, my parents went away on a week’s vacation…oops, scratch that. Here’s the real situation: you and your friend want to meet up for lunch, coffee, etc…but the only restaurants you know are right near you, and the only restaurants they know are right near them. The solution to this quandary? Mezzoman.

With Mezzoman, you enter in your address, your friend’s address, choose the search critera (e.g. Pizzeria, American food, coffee shop, Chinese food), hit Go, and you will be given a list of results near the midpoint of the two locations.

What new devilry is this?

No devilry, just Google. The site uses Google Maps along with local business directories to find the two locations, calculate the midpoint, and provide you with a few dining options in that area.

One obvious disadvantage: Mezzoman plots the midpoint geographically, or “as the crow flies.” In other words, it doesn’t take into account traffic, construction, or any related difficulties one party might have getting to the recommended location. But at the very least, Mezzoman gives you a good starting point for your hangout hunt.

[via AppScout]

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Filed under: World wide web, Web services, Social Software

Kollecta is a social networking site designed for collectors of all shapes and sizes. The site is currently in beta and has a database of “over a million collectible items” and grants you to check off what you currently have in your collection, what you’d like to add, and what you’re willing to sell to someone else.

Once you’ve created a profile with all of your stuff you can join a group and share that list with other collectors on the site. Users in the group can talk about their passion for coins, stamps, smurfs, or whatever else it is you’re collecting, rate items value, share collecting tips, and arrange to purchase, sell, or trade items with others.

Providing what you collect is in Kollecta’s database, the site could be a good place to keep track of your collection and connect with people who can help you add to it. If what you collect isn’t in their database, or there isn’t a group for it yet Kollecta provides you tools to add them.

Kollecta is currently free, with mention on the site of a potential cost later down the road. A similar site for collectors is iTaggit.

[via EmilyChang]

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Filed under: Banks, Borrowing, College, Debt, Saving, The Dolans

Ken and Daria Dolan, America’s First Family of Personal Finance, help you with your money questions every Friday.

Hey Dolans!

Please help! I’m drowning in student debt. What can I do?

Nancy

Ken and Daria Dolan offer advice on the smartest ways to pay for college, pay off student loan debt, 529 plans and much more at Dolans.com

Click here to ask Ken and Daria your question.

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Filed under: Budgets, Cards, Debt, Wealth

What’s in My Wallet is a series of posts from WalletPop writers and editors that’ll help you maximize your financial self according to what you carry.

By special request I now empty the contents of my wallet for review. I should tell you first, my wallet is not used as a receptacle for carrying actual money. Cash goes in my front pants pocket just because I think it’s a bit more secure there. The wallet which I’m carrying right now is probably about two years old and I’d be willing to bet it’s touched cash, maybe twice. My wallet is an effective mini filing cabinet which is seldom tampered with except for the almost daily removal and deployment of my trusty debit card.

Let’s see now, I’ve my driver’s license here and amazingly it’s up to date. It has the obligatory bad pic on it and a little donor icon over on the right side. I’ve a couple health insurance cards here also. Knock on wood, those have seen daylight only a couple times. My social security card also takes up a wallet spot. It’s in amazingly good condition for what it’s been through all these years.

I’m carrying several little paper slips with phone numbers I occasionally use. I’m also carrying a couple business cards as reminders of services well performed. The largest volume of my wallet is taken by my favorite pictures of my wife and my girls. I guess perhaps my wallet gives evidence of the nature of my priorities.

There are no credit cards in my wallet and I like it that way. Credit cards don’t interest me and I haven’t had one for about a decade. My debit card functions in the very same manner as a credit card does, except when I use it, I’m spending money I actually have. You might be tempted to wonder why I loath the presence of a credit card in my wallet. If so, I’ll simply explain it to you this way: It is my thought that credit cards are too damn costly to own, and the people who use them the most are generally the people who should be using them the least.

What’s in your wallet and what’s your thought on credit cards? We’d all love to know.

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Filed under: Cards, Debt

The big fuss about Bank of America credit card interest rates has just gotten worse. First, we heard from those whose credit scores had fallen, because Bank of America noticed and raised their rates. It seemed unfair, especially when people who were completely current on their payments with Bank of America were penalized. They reasoned that they shouldn’t have an interest rate increase because of other credit activity. They lost that battle based upon language in their credit card agreement.

But now the flap has gotten worse, as Bank of America has raised rates for customers who don’t even appear to have any new adverse credit information. How did they do it? Easy. They told customers they would raise their rates, and they did.

Are you in the bad habit of throwing out all those tiny papers that come with your credit card statement? Did you quickly discard a letter from your credit card company, thinking it was more standard fine print? I recommend you take a good look at those, because that’s how these customers got stung.

A few weeks ago, Bank of America credit card holders got a letter saying they’d have their interest rates increased up to 28%, and these letters went to the ones with good credit. No reason was given, but a telephone number was available for those who wanted to know why. (Those who called say they didn’t get a good answer, though.) Consumers had a chance to NOT have their interest rates go up with an “opt-out” clause, but many foolishly didn’t pay attention and didn’t take the opportunity to it.

Bottom line… rates went up for reasons such as higher balances with Bank of America or other credit card companies. The bank reviews credit information periodically, and now even when your credit score hasn’t gone down, you can still be penalized.

This is just one more reason to avoid credit card debt as much as possible. Americans have been playing fast and loose with the plastic, and it’s time to pay for those sins. Get your credit card debt paid off as soon as possible, because you don’t know when you might be subject to one of these crazy policies.

Oh… and quit crying. Unfortunately, what the credit card companies are doing is totally legal AND it’s disclosed in your agreement with them. Basically, once you’ve a balance on your credit card, the credit card company owns you. And it’s your own fault for pulling out the plastic. And for Bank of America, it’s just business as usual.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Bookkeeping, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

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Filed under: Internet, Web services, Social Software

Twitter users love to gripe that it’s too hard to track a topic of conversation as it spreads across the service. Being able to keep up with an interesting piece of news depends on finding the right people to follow, and that’s not always simple with the limited search tools Twitter provides. Twemes (it stands for Twitter plus memes) is a site that aims to solve that problem by grouping Twitter tweets according to topic.

Twemes searches Twitter for hashtags, key words marked with the # sign that let you know what each tweet is all about. For example, when you tell everyone on Twitter about how much you enjoyed this post, you can mention #downloadsquad and Twemes will find your tweet, categorize it, and add it to an RSS feed of related tweets. You can find topics on Twemes either by searching or by clicking on words in the tag cloud, which works as an interesting visual display of what Twitter is talking about.

If the idea of hashtags catches on, Twemes could become a useful part of the Twitter experience. Anyone using Twitter’s built-in tracking to watch interesting terms via phone or IM already knows how convenient it would be to take those alerts out of your stream and read them on the side. Although hashtags are used by a fairly small number of Twitterers, they’re already a reliable way to follow conversations about the most important events in the global community right now. If you need proof, just check out the feed for Cloverfield.

[Via Mashable]

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Filed under: World wide web, Web services, Social Software

Twitter users love to gripe that it’s too hard to track a topic of conversation as it spreads across the service. Being able to keep up with an interesting piece of news depends on finding the right people to follow, and that’s not always simple with the limited search tools Twitter provides. Twemes (it stands for Twitter plus memes) is a site that aims to solve that problem by grouping Twitter tweets according to topic.

Twemes searches Twitter for hashtags, key words marked with the # sign that let you know what each tweet is all about. For example, when you tell everyone on Twitter about how much you enjoyed this post, you can mention #downloadsquad and Twemes will find your tweet, categorize it, and add it to an RSS feed of related tweets. You can find topics on Twemes either by searching or by clicking on words in the tag cloud, which works as an interesting visual display of what Twitter is talking about.

If the idea of hashtags catches on, Twemes could become a useful part of the Twitter experience. Anyone using Twitter’s built-in tracking to watch interesting terms via phone or IM already knows how convenient it would be to take those alerts out of your stream and read them on the side. Although hashtags are used by a fairly small number of Twitterers, they’re already a reliable way to follow conversations about the most important events in the global community right now. If you need proof, just check out the feed for Cloverfield.

[Via Mashable]

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Filed under: Fun, Internet, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

There was a time when Facebook only came in one flavor: English. Well, no longer; there’s now an option under “Languages,” which you can get to via “Account,” to change Facebook’s primary language to Spanish.

Currently, there are about 2.8 million registered Facebook users in Latin America and Spain. Both regions will begin to load the Spanish version of Facebook by default starting on Monday, but users will have the option to change the default language back to English should the change be considered bothersome.

Though critics are weary of Facebook’s ability to maintain itself and its huge social-networking market-share, the company is now destined to grow internationally. Good luck, Mr. Zuckerberg.

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Filed under: Developer, Internet, Social Software

For those who have hoped for less application madness on Facebook, an announcement on the Facebook Developers blog should be of interest to you: a reward system for applications that are “compelling.”

So, instead of giving applications a limit of 40 notifications per user per day, the amount of notifications sent out will adjust in accordance with the feedback an application gets. The more an application gets ignored, reported as spam, or hidden, the less notifications users will receive. The aim of this little adjustment is to reduce notifications that users will find to be of a “spammy” nature, while encouraging developers to make applications that users will want their friends to know about.

Whether that means that notifications of friends adding or using applications that have gotten a “bad rep” will begin disappearing, is still not clear. But, it’s reasonable to think that some of the notification “noise” will be reduced.

In the meantime, until the update is put in place, developers will be provided with two new “Insight” statistics tabs, to give them a better understanding of how users are responding to their applications. Users can expect to start seeing changes as early as next week.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

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