Curlie

On the Web

Best of the Web

Websites that help us find the most valuable resources, provides lists of links (ranked and unranked, limited to certain numbers or not), select sites periodically (sites of the day, week, month, year) and/or gives awards, and write reviews. This category lists sites that cover these areas. IMPORTANT NOTE: This is *not* a place to submit an entry for your site because you think it's the best, nor is this a place to dump your web design and/or development site entry. This is for sites that deal with the SUBJECT of "The Best of the Web."

Please do not submit affiliate farms or a "fake" sets of site reviews that you created just to get in this category. It wont work.

Free Stuff

*** Important Notice ***

The following sites will not be considered for addition:

1) Any collection of "Sponsor" or paid links. These include: bachsys, websponsors, clicktrade, cyberbounty, directleads, etc. Sites must have primarily original content/legitimate links.

2) Sites that use "Jump.cgi" or "Out.cgi" scripts or similar, redirect urls, forwarding pages, full page ads and similar to deter the determination of sponsor use and original content.

3) Sites with numerous popups or redirects through large ads.

4) Banner farms.

5) Doorway or affiliate sites.

6) Sites under construction.

7) "Get paid to surf the net" or "Earn free money off the net" types of sites.

Free Stuff:

This category is for free stuff available via the web, as well as sites listing links to free stuff. Examples include gifts, subscriptions, electronic postcards, catalogs, sweepstakes entries, coupons, etc.

Link Pages:

If your site contains a majority of legitimate links to offers, please submit it to https://curlie.org/Computers/Internet/WWW/Free_Stuff/Link_Pages/

When submitting your site, please ensure that:

1) You use the proper title for your site.

2) The description is brief, concise and accurate. No promotional copies please

This category is only for genuine rewards programs; not for link and affiliate code pages. Hundreds of these pages have been submitted and deleted. If you submit a page like this, it will simply be deleted!

Message Boards

Message boards or discussion forums are usually the main aspect of an online (virtual) community where one can interact with other people of similar interests by posting and replying to messages, in your own time. This usually results in higher quality of discussions than with real-time chat.

Message boards and forums are listed primarily by topic, and only general message boards and forums will be listed here. If you board/forum is focussed on a specific topic (such as Computers, cricket, sports cars, or a particular TV show) then please locate the best category for that topic and suggest the site there instead.

Suggesting inappropriate sites here will only delay their review and potential inclusion by editors. They may end up being deleted as a spam submission.

Online Communities

A directory of Internet sites that help people communicate and interact with each other. These sites feature services such as message forums, chat rooms, email and other messaging services. They may also feature online games and other ways for user to interact. These sites offer the users a hub for a specific subject and have information and other resources there. Subject-specific communities should be listed with the subject category. For shortcuts to some of these, see By Subject.

This category is often considered catch-all, so we've made strict submission guidelines.

Subject-specific communities or clubs should be listed with the subject category. Regional communities should be listed with the regional category. Communities whose participation uses languages other than English should be listed under the World category.

Consider as well whether the site is better listed in Chat, Bulletin Boards, Mailing Lists or Message Boards.

The community must be active: A community member must have posted on the week the site is reviewed. Chat sites submissions must have member persistence, i.e., most participants are regulars and have member profiles.

In short, only active, global, persistent communities, written in English, are accepted.

We repeat: If your community has a subject, uses a foreign language, has a target or has a focus, they are listed elsewhere, not here.

Suggesting inappropriate sites to this category will only delay their review and potential listing by editors.

Podcasts

Podcasting is the creation and dissemination of a series (episodes) of files (known as podcasts) for people to listen to on their computer or on a portable player. These files can be talk shows, music shows, recordings of talks and speeches and maybe people reading the texts of books. The genre has a wide variety of formats but podcasts are similar to a radio show (talk, music, variety) that can be played on demand. The name is a derivative of the one for Apple's iPod.

Podcasts covering a specific topic will not go here. They''ll get submitted to the appropriate area of ODP for that topic.

Example: A podcast about scuba diving would likely find a home in Recreation: Outdoors: Scuba Diving or a subcategory, for example. A podcast about diving in Hawaii may end up in Regional: North America: United States: Hawaii: Oahu: Recreation and Sports: Scuba Diving as well as the Recreation/ category.

Syndication and Feeds

A web feed is a lightweight mechanism used to provide users with details of updated content on the web. Content distributors provide web feeds with their content (known as syndication), and users can then monitor the feeds for changes or use the supplied content in other ways (known as subscribing).

Sites about web feeds and syndication may be suggested here, including details of the processes involved at both ends, FAQs, and tutorials. Sites specific to a particular format or protocol that has its own category should be suggested there instead. Sites about software to allow users to read feeds belongs in the linked category, rather than here. Actual web feeds are listed throughout the directory according to their topic. Hence individual feeds should not be submitted to this category (unless of course the feed covers the topic of web feeds).

Webcams

Cameras connected the web. Includes both indoor and outdoor views as well as links to good directories of cameras.

Please submit only webcams displaying current images. Images should update regularly or provide an approximate schedule of operation. Review the available sub-categories and submit the webcam there as appropriate.

Weblogs

Editors and submitters: This is not a generic weblog category. This category is for sites relating to weblogs, including background information and resources for bloggers. Actual weblogs are listed by their topic, so do not belong here unless they happen to cover the topic of blogging itself. Before submitting a site here, please look to see if there is a more appropriate linked sub-category.

Web Applications

Web Applications are web sites that perform the same function as software that you might otherwise download and run locally. Having the advantage of executing on a web server, Web Applications don't consume space on your hard drive, don't crash or conflict with other applications, and best of all are accessible from anywhere.

The downside from the end user's point of view is loss of control over what the application does, the impossibility to keep old versions and possible privacy problems.

The companies that create and serve web applications are called Application Service Providers (ASPs).

The companies that create and serve web applications are called Application Service Providers (ASPs).

Web Portals

Web sites that provide a variety of internet content. Minimally the portal site should feature a search engine/directory, web based e-mail, news, and weather. Portal sites may also have auctions, shopping links and classifieds. Generally a portal site is a convenient place to start from when you go online.

Please submit general English-language portals that feature a search engine/directory, e-mail accounts, news, and weather. A large proportion of the content should originate from the domain submitted.

Please do NOT submit portals for specific topics, countries, regions or locations. These should be submitted to the relevant topical or regional category.

Web Rings

Web rings (or perhaps more commonly, "webrings") are groupings of sites that share a common topical interest with distributed navigation structure. Through links on member pages such as Next, Previous, and List Sites, visitors can navigate to similar but independent pages elsewhere on the web. A list owner generally serves as moderator and administrator for a ring.

Submit sites about web rings to this category. Sites that review and categorize rings may be also appropriate for listing here.

Sites offering ring management software and ring hosting services should be submitted to Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Hosted_Components_and_Services/Web_Rings.

If you are submitting an individual web ring, find the most appropriate topical category and submit it there instead (or to its Web_Rings subcategory, if one exists). Individual web rings will not be listed here.

Rings that include adult sites should be submitted to the appropriate topical category in Adult.

Worst of the Web

Sites dedicated to examining the "worst sites on the web".