Founded on December 1st 2007, DealQUE’s focus is on social bargain hunting, where users generate dealQUE’s deal content and share it with he community.

Similar to social book marking sites DealQUE’s users not only submit deals, but depending on their popularity they control the ranking of these deals.

The main page has a nice design, with an easy to use interface. DealQUE has it’s own algorithm which is determined by various factors such as the amount of times a deal is clicked, the frequency of clicks, and “the distance from the earth to the moon relative to DealQUE headquarters”! Deals with a higher rating are displayed before others.

26 year old Emmanuel and his two friends Marie and Peter were always on a lookout for deals on the internet, and figured “why not share their great finds with a community of users who are like minded!”

It took them two and a half months from idea to launch to get DealQUE up and running. They had an alpha stage before the website was complete, which was a basic daily deal aggregator. The entire website was built by the 3 of them, so not a penny was spent on the development process. Marie has an background in art, and everyone is a software engineer. They work out of their home offices, surviving purely on Roman noodles (Oriental flavor is the best)

Since launch, they spent a minimal amount of money on servers, google ads, and facebook ads. Their revenue model is based on direct advertisements and revenue sharing through affiliations.

DealQUE is teaming up with Price Grabber, and by the end of the month hope to have Price Grabber’s features fully integrated on DealQUE.com. This will allow for a better user experience such as price comparisons and showing related products.

If you’re constantly on the lookout for new deals, make sure to check out DealQUE’s RSS feed to stay updated on the latest and greatest deals!

Next time you’re looking for something to buy, make sure to head over to DealQUE and find it for less.

Have you ever wondered what the people working around you are making but are too scared to ask? Springraise might just be for you. It’s dubbed as a “Carreer sharing network” and let’s you track your “career curve” and compare it against others in your industry with similar experience levels as you.

Springraise isn’t quite let yet (launching May 21st) but you can see a preview of the app below.

So how does it work?

1. Enter your full background and employment information (past and present)
2. View your career over time to see how you compare to others like you
3. See the careers of others like you (in one click) and compare your career to theirs
4. Perform scenarios to see your career prospects
5. Discuss with others to learn how they made their career decisions

This video should give you a bit more of an insight to the concept and idea. I’m looking forward to seeing this one in action.

Siftd is a digg clone that tries to solve some of the problems digg has been having of late. The concept is simple. Users submit stories to siftd, if other users like the stories they can digg them (or in this case “vote” them) up. When the story has enough “votes” it is featured on the homepage and receives more exposure. That is the concept but the computer algorithm that works out which stories deserve to be bumped up to the homepage is a lot more complex than that.

So what’s different about siftd?
The main difference with siftd is the algorithm. Currently the algorithm gives equal weight to stories in specific categories meaning it takes a story from each section and promotes it to the front page based on its popularity from the upcoming section. The algorithm also keeps too many stories from a single section from making it to the front page. In theory you should get a more diverse range of stories being promoted.

I asked Brian Rubash, one of the site owners how he came up with the idea.

We have been (and still are) long time users and fans of digg.com and have watched it’s transition from a tech news site to a more diverse site. By late last year it was increasingly evident that digg wasn’t going to return to what it used to be so we set about to create something that could provide a similar experience to the tech crowd, and other demographics, without compromising any group’s experience. We also looked at sites beyond Digg for features that impressed us, and features that made everything easier for the user. We have been called a Digg clone, but I think we really offer something more, and that really goes back to our goal of working for our users.

Siftd isn’t the first to follow digg’s voting model of making stories more popular (see mixx and reddit) but the system they have is solid. It’s going to be very interesting to see if they can get any traction at all and start stealing users away from digg but I personally think they may have shot themselves in the foot a little bit by branding themselves so similarly to digg. Usually (in my experience) to make any impact on a market that is already being dominated by some big players you need to offer something drastically new to get any attention at all.

Intodit is a social group site offering services similar to Yahoo! Groups or Ning. Intodit let’s you create a group about (more or less) anything you like. Once your group is created you can then customize your group anyway you want and invite your friends to join.

While this might not be useful to a lot of tech-savvy people there is definitely a market for it. Everyone wants their little part of the internet and this service makes that easy. It’s also a great model for promotion with each group owner promoting their specific group and in-turn, promoting the main intodit website.

I spoke with Maurice Sikkink and found out a bit more about the service.

I have a few small communities running on very targeted niches, like home interior pictures and gardening. These sites only allow users to upload their home interior and garden pictures and create a profile. I wanted to create something that people could use to do more than only uploading pictures, so I thought people should be able to create a group for their own interest niche and fill it the blanks the way they want it.

Maurice has developed the entire site himself and to date has only spent $5 on the domain name (excluding server costs).

alonetone is a really sexy website for musicians made by a musician. I came across the site a few days ago while looking for music resources and instantly fell in love with it. The site isn’t that new (launching late last year) but they recently launched a new version with a sexed up new design.

The concept is simple. Musicians can upload music to their account and share it with their friends. The site also provides a platform for discovering new music for musicians and non-musicians alike. The execution is seamless.

I managed to get in contact with the owner and found out a bit more about the origins of the website and concept.

I am a recording ‘bedroom’ musician, and I’ve offered my own music online (for free) for a really long time. I’ve spent a lot of time encouraging and helping other musician friends of mine record and share their music. I’ve always dreamed of a nice automated system that would help many more musicians get their music online for others to hear, without the stinky corporate feel getting in the way. Just music, people who make music, and their listeners and fans.

alonetone is different because it is non-commercial, run by a musician for musicians and is not trying to sell anyone anything. Tons of sites out there promise musicians money, fame, etc. Although this can seem attractive, it’s not really what a musician needs when they start recording and sharing music. It is another false promise from another company making profit from them (or trying to). It’s very unlikely that the musician will make any money by signing up with these other sites.

With alonetone, there is no reason to include money in the discussion. Maybe if the site explodes in popularity, it will need some help to pay the storage costs. But that is about it. The code is open source. The development is out in the open. I encourage the musicians to tell me what they are looking for and I try to develop something that will address their underlying needs. Really, it’s just all about the music and the people who make it.

Also, alonetone is a step in a larger ladder. I have many ideas about how music can look online. The biggest issue with online music is - how do you find music you will like? alonetone provides musicians with a home, but I’d also like to move in the direction of providing listeners with one too.

alonetone is an on-going project so if you find any bugs or issues while browsing the site please report them. It’s a great project with some honest goals and I really hope it does well.