What are your favorite websites?

When the age of the world wide web was just dawning, I remember trying to explain the concept of eBay to my wife. “It’s like a garage sale, but it covers the entire planet! Anything you can imagine (for the most part) you can find there.” Her eyes got bigger, and she replied, “Even the Sunshine Family?”

“What’s the Sunshine Family?” I naturally inquired.

She filled me in on this mid-70’s “Barbie-doll” style family of dolls with all the marketing accessories of course.

Next, we fired up the dial-up modem and waited for it to connect…and waited…and waited.

Finally, it came up and I entered the URL for eBay and clicked enter. Numerous results began popping up on the page, and the look on her face was amazing. It was like giving back a bit of childhood.

Today, with AI being the new, exciting frontier (or the end of civilization as we know it), the internet continues to evolve. Some things, however, stay the same. Although eBay is no longer on my frequently visited site list, a lot of others are. Which ones, you ask? Here are some of my favorite sites and/or apps to visit on a daily basis!

INSTAGRAM

With this app, I tend to scroll before bed through their “Reels” option, where I can laugh at memes, learn a new way to make something that sounds delicious, realize how clueless people are when it comes to the political landscape in the U.S., and just scroll through lots of posts about Corgis!

AMAZON

Whether I’m looking for a part for my lawnmower, checking on the status of my order, or simply shopping for ideas (or things to add to my Christmas “wish list”), it’s pretty much guaranteed that I’ll stop by the largest consumer site in the world at least once a day.

YOUTUBE

Reaction videos, music videos, funny videos, movie trailers. All of it is out there for consumption. My favorite channels? Rob Squad Reactions, Honest Movie Trailers, WatchMojo, and others I can’t recall at the moment.

IMDB

Every now and then, we’ll be in a movie theater and an actor will pop on the screen and I’m thinking to myself, “where have I seen them before?”. When home, I usually grab my phone and pop onto IMDB (Internet Movie Database) and use the feature that shows the films or tv shows they’ve been on in the past. I scroll a minute and then go “oh, yeah, they were (fill-in-the-blank)!” I also enjoy reading the behind-the-scenes trivia section about the film/show as well.

CANVA

Sometimes you need a graphic for a project (or this site for instance), and you don’t want to pay a fortune for multiple websites to get something customized the way you like or need it. Canva offers many templates that you can use with your own graphics to create professional looking results in minutes.

WIKIPEDIA

There are few places that have more encyclopedic knowledge of so many different topics on the internet than Wikipedia. Sure, you have to deal with some misinformation (or censoring of true information), but overall, it’s a great place to learn about things that interest you the most.

X (FORMERLY TWITTER)

Love it or hate it, X is the best place to find out what’s going on NOW…in the moment. Plus if you simply want to argue with someone, what better online resource is there?

MOTEVENTURE

Kind of a no-brainer! Hope you feel the same and save, subscribe or share my own blog with your friends and family!

CAPCUT

Similar to Canva but creates interesting videos with numerous templates. Good for Instagram Reels, TikTok, Clapper and other social media sites.

LINKEDIN

Most people are familiar with LinkedIn. I use it to keep up with my “day job” and the inspirational success advice I find every day from my numerous colleagues.

LIBBY

As an avid reader, I am not keen to spend exorbitant dollars buying books I’ll read only once, and our local library isn’t quite as convenient as logging into Libby and checking out books to my Kindle or my phone. My only complait? It’s really hard to read a book in only 14 days!

VENMO

Quite often we have events at work that require money to participate. In the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, Venmo has been a great source to collect funds from those of us who work remotely. Plus, it’s convenient should a friend or family member need to borrow a few bucks!

MY FITNESS PAL

This site helps me keep tabs on exactly what I’m eating daily and how much more I can consume before I hit my goal for the day. One huge plus too is that it works with my fitness app, adjusting my allotted calories for the day based upon the amount of exercise I’ve put into my day.

SPOTIFY

This is another piece of my fitness puzzle; in that it allows me to stay pumped and motivated throughout each day’s work out (or even while walking my dog). Spotify also allows me to create custom playlists that I often feature on the blog here too!

FLIPBOARD

Love this app as it makes finding current news I want to read easy and the political spectrum of what I see is controlled by my settings, as opposed to the people running the app/site.

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Those are some of my favorite apps and/or sites that I surf most every day. What sites do you love and visit every day? Share your recommendations in the comments!