Tracking the social habits of people is one of the interesting things that has been made easy by social media. There are many user powered sites where people can voice out their views by making a status update like in Twitter or sending a text message or uploading a picture. Most of these sites make a provision for anonymous updates and taking a rough glance will also tell you that many users provide the update without disclosing their name and location. Here are some of the sites that fall under this category.

PS: Some of these sites may have obscene language and might not be suitable for audience of all age groups. So please be cautious. On the other hand, i can assure that this post is pretty safe for work!

1. FMYLIfe

FMYLife stands for Failing MY Life and it is undoubtedly the most popular site of the lot. It serves as a medium where users can let out the frustrating happenings in their daily life. As the site says “it allows you to realize that you are not alone”. The success of this site can be attributed to how people can relate themselves to the screw-ups that happen in others’ lives. A voting system with “I agree, your life sucks” and “You deserve it” helps people to cast their opinions.

2. TFLN

TFLN or Texts From Last Night works on the interesting notion that some people prefer texts rather than conversations and also people tend to text a lot at the night time that too when they get drunk. The site asks the users to just enter the area code and the content so that it reveals the best parts and at the same time it covers personal information. In general, we will be curious to know what is happening in our locality and TFLN has rightly captured this by making a provision to segregate the updates by area code.

3. MyLifeIsG

MyLifeIsG or My Life is Good is the reverse version of FMyLife. It documents the small but nice happenings in the daily lives of people. If you are looking for a one minute motivation, then this is the site you have to visit. If you feel that ‘your life is awesome’ then go ahead and post it over there and share your happy moment.

4. MyLifeIsAverage

The reality is everyone doesn’t excel in life and MyLifeIsAverage is a site which stands as a testimony for this fact.  The majority of the world lives and dies an average life and sharing those mediocrities makes things a little bit interesting. What makes this thing interesting is how insignificant stories happening in an anonymous person’s life brings in some sort of relevance/significance to the reader.

5. I Just Made Love

IJML or ‘I Just Made Love’ is a nice visual representation which shows where in the world people made love. A pretty good example of how the Google Maps API can be utilized! Users can update their location in real time and the site also provides nice time based filtering.

6. F**K My Sex Life

This comes from the makers of FMYlife and to quote from the site.

it’s a wonderful little site where you can share your less than desirable situations about your sex life or other people’s sex lives

Not much to explain or post a screenshot!

7. Can i tap that

Users randomly text some one asking “you can tap that” and post the reply which they get. Although it may be inappropriate to do such a thing it is pretty common among college going kids!

Once again not much to explain or post a screen shot!

8. It Made My Day

Every day we will have some small happy moments like finding a long lost pen or receiving a wish from a friend which will make our day. ‘It Made My Day’ is a site where you can share and read about such small and sweet happenings. It is pretty similar to MyLifeIsG.

9. This is why you’re fat

Although this one is not similar to the other sites in the list it forms a nice conclusion. Users submit pictures of junk food which looks really good. The site also has a very nice caption-’Where dreams become heart attacks’.

One interesting similarity which can be noted in most of these websites is that as a end user we have no connection in the social graph with the poster but still we will be able to relate to it in some cases. Have you come across any other sites similar to the ones listed above? Do share it in the comments.

It is really important to have an online identity because the first thing which a prospective employer or a customer or a business acquaintance is going to do is to perform a Google search for your name. You don’t want to have some of your drunken pictures or bad comments showing up when your name is searched for. We should always remember that everything we do online is getting documented in some way or the other and also the information is available openly for everyone to see. There are some simple steps which will help to boost your personal reputation in the internet world.

Image Credit: Geek and Poke

1. Create your blog or homepage
It is always good to have a personal blog or a homepage where people can find information about you. Getting a domain name with your first and/or last name in it is really a good practice and it will feed some nice value to the search engines. Having relevant keywords in the domain name is one of the common strategies which search engine optimizers follow. In most cases it might not be possible to get a domain name which is same as your name. In such cases try alternative domain extensions or domain hacking. If you are blogging under a brand name make sure that your full name is prominently visible in the about section and in all other places possible (Eg: Posted by John Kramer). If you are a student, putting up your resume and contact information on the homepage is a good practice.

2. Social media profiles
Creating profiles on the prominent social networks will definitely boost your online presence. One important thing to keep in mind while creating profiles in social media sites like Twitter, Delicious, Digg etc is to have a consistent user name. Like in the previous case, it is good to have your first name/last name combination as your user name rather than having something like zombieking or techieboy. Just creating the profile and leaving it deserted is of no use. There are many cases where people have found their prospective employers via social media channels and it is always good to be participative. Creating a professional profile on LinkedIn and furnishing the right details will be of good help to explore a lot of opportunities and get new professional contacts.

3. Think before your post
Every status update which you post on Twitter or every comment which you write on your friend’s face book wall is getting archived. It is always good to think for a second before your post. Swearing is one thing which most of us are good at but keeping it off the online world is a big ‘to-do’ if you are looking to have a positive reputation. Bitching about your current or past employer is a big no and so is foul mouthing about products or services in public space. Being careful and choosy about your online contacts is a plus and it is also good to look before you follow.

4. No drunken pictures
A recent study by Careerbuilder.com revealed that 45% of employers looked at social profiles of the candidates whom they were looking to hire. Drunken photos, reference to drug usage, swearing are some of the reasons why candidates were denied. The good lesson which we can learn from this study is to keep our Facebook profile clean and untag all the drunken pictures posted by friends.

5.Track,Track,Track
Track who is talking about you. Some of the methods to do this are to check your @replies on twitter and set up Google alerts for your name. Although this is more important for brands, it works out well for individuals too.

6. Google Yourself
Google yourself or Ego surf and see if things look fine when your name is searched for. Although nothing much can be done for the existing results, doing the steps listed above in the right way may change the results in your favor over a period of time.

PayPal is undoubtedly one of the biggest and the most common systems used for online payments. Although there are some payment gateways from prominent players like Google and Amazon, PayPal continues to rule this space despite its high transaction fees. PayPal also lacks proper customer service and most of the tech forums will have a hate thread for PayPal with constant updates and complaints. There are also many anti paypal sites and a search for the keywords ‘Paypal Sucks’ fires up close to 200k results.

The sheer advantage of PayPal is the huge user base and also the ease of sending and receiving money. It also helps merchants to set up shopping carts,subscriptions and buy now buttons very easily. Lets look at how to get the best out of PayPal.

There are three types of accounts which can be created in PayPal.
1. Personal Account – As the name implies it is for personal usage. It has limited features and with a personal account a user can receive only 5 credit card funded payments per year.
2. Premier Account – This account provides merchant services and unlimited credit card transactions. This is well suited for freelancers who don’t have a company registered as a premier account will be under an individual’s name.
3. Business Account- Has all the features of the premier account and the account will be in the name of a registered business.

Up till now there was no charge for money sent and received through personal accounts but recently Paypal sneakily made some changes in the fee structure and it annoyed many users. The ‘gross amount’ received was displayed in the account dashboard and many people failed to notice the fact that Paypal silently swallowed some part of their money.

Here are some of the good practices for using Paypal and getting the best out of it.

1.Verify your account

The first and the foremost thing to do after opening a paypal account is to get it verified. This will remove a lot of limitations for sending/receiving and withdrawing money from the account. Verified accounts also increases the credibility factor to a great extent. Many online merchants make it a mandatory requirement if you want to pay using Paypal. It is very simple to verify your paypal account and all you need is a valid credit card. The Verification FAQ on the paypal gives a clear picture.

2. Have Two Accounts

Paypal allows all users to have two accounts legally (one personal and one premier/business). Keep all your personal transactions on the personal account and this will make things a lot easier. Whenever you are receiving a personal payment make sure you ask the sender to select the “Personal” option. This will ensure that both the parties involved in the personal transaction don’t incur any fees.

It should also be noted that receiving personal payments for business transactions in order to avoid the fees is against the terms and conditions and it might lead to account suspension.

3. Use Mass Pay

Mass Pay is one of the awesome features provided by Paypal for sending payments. This feature is really helpful for companies making bulk payments to their clients/customers (Eg: Ad networks making monthly payments to their publishers). Masspay has a $1 or 2% fee (whichever is lesser) and this will help you to save a lot. You can check out how to make a Paypal Masspay.

The Masspay feature works only with premier and business accounts.

4. Connect on twitter
Customer service is one thing where Paypal lacks a lot but it looks like things have improved a lot in the recent times. The @AskPaypal account on Twitter provides good customer service. You can also check out the other official Twitter handles of Paypal and connect with them.