If you want to take social networking and do something productive with it, within a local setting, Amazee may be the thing to give you the value-add you crave. Rather than offer you a place to play board games or chat with friends, Amazee is built to serve one purpose: getting stuff done.

Through collaboration with friends and strangers alike, users can manipulate the powers that be at Amazee to simply get a better handle on things that require proactive organization. The way I might describe the service is really the organizer behind the organization, keeping everything in tune and in sync from steps A to B to C to Z. This goes for ensuring basic order to promotions, sponsorships, and advertising.

One example of a major party that will trial Amazee is Chicago2016. Chicago2016 is an advocacy group that is tapping the toolkit to help residents of Illinois and states elsewhere keep contact with the effort to ultimately try to win the role of host of the Summer Olympic Games eight years hence, after a stop in London, England in 2012.

Having origins in the Swiss capital of Zurich, and now keeping an office in San Francisco, Calif., Amazee appears to be well-developed as both an internal manager and news delivery mechanism. The dashboard alone is both nicely featured and simply designed. Definitely not to be too sparse nor too chaotic. Projects of course command the majority of real estate in Amazee. And for followers of a particular project, blogs can be produced; for each project or routinely for an extensive task. (The Chicago2016 being one very detailed vision.)

These are of course part and parcel of promotion online today, so it is only natural that Amazee offers this option in addition to its root organizational qualities. Nevertheless, the ingrained access to a publishing component provided by Amazee makes for an even further streamlined process, and efficiency is increasingly crucial as numbers of members and associates grow by leaps and bounds.

Several utilities other than Amazee’s own will of course conquer some of the tasks that Amazee is able to handle, and perhaps others that Amazee ignores. Some fairly customizable platforms, such as Ning, perhaps deliver more in the way of social features. But on the whole, Amazee does what its creators intend and does it well. It’s a powerful venue for members and inclusive to the curious visitor. And that is eminently important to Amazee’s future as such a multifaceted actor, given its specific activist devotion.

Source:Mashable!

If academic learning via the Web is something that intrigues you, there are a number of places to go. But if you’re interested specifically in learning via live video instruction and tutoring, the name eduFire is something you might want to familiarize yourself with. In fact, you already may have done so.

What began as a language learning engine, eduFire has grown handily, to tens of thousands of visitors per month. And now, eduFire has expanded into a new area, providing coaches and trainers for test preparation purposes. ACT, GMAT, GRE, PSAT, SAT, LSAT, and MCAT tutors are now featured.

As one might expect, several of the abovementioned exam titles offer more tutors than others. The ACT page on eduFire, for instance, lists 51 tutors available for live video interaction, either on-demand or through set scheduling. This is much more than even the combined totals of the CPA, DAT, NCLEX, and TOEIC, each of which users will find hosts only 4 aids or less. The only grouping of tutors larger than that of the ACT column is the figure for SAT help (73 people). Of course, there are tutors which specialize in multiple tests.

Having browsed several test pages to observe the user profiles of some instructors, it seems that more students will prefer less expensive sessions than the pricier sort. There are exceptions to this short-lived trend (short-lived in the sense that eduFire’s test prep center is a new feature on the site, not test prep in general), but on the whole, tutors who stay below the $40 level in per-session fee will probably have the most success in registering time with students. Whatever the case, visitors unsure about whether the style of learning eduFire provides is appropriate for them will like the post-session payment model it employs.

EduFire’s chance at long-term sustainment is fairly solid. The company operates on a 15% per hour flat fee from hourly sessions paid for by users. This seems reasonable both for instructors and for users, and if the website’s stated growth is a good indication of things to come, it will move forward in kind. In light of fiscal woes and increased pressures to employ test prep anyway one can, without having to consult costly private, local institutions, a place such as eduFire seems to target a need that is almost definitely going to become more evident with time.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:InterviewUp Aims to Help You Prep For Job InterviewsB4Class Offers Free SAT TutoringHurry up! Get a Golden Ticket for Wink!Harvard Grads Prep to Lampoon FacebookInvestopedia Acquired by ForbesReport: DOJ Investigating Yahoo-Google Ad TestReport: Yahoo Close to Search Advertising Deal with Google

Below are five of the newest startups according to Killer Startups for the period ending May 21, 2008. Check out previous Killer Startups posts.

VistaZoo - Create Stunning Virtual Tours

Virtual tours are a great way to display locations and objects with a 360 degree view in an online environment. They can be used for any number of potential applications such as for real estate, tourism or as a marketing tool for online sales. VistaZoo is a free portal that allows anyone to register and then create their own virtual tour without requiring any programming knowledge. Once a user has finished making their tour, it is automatically uploaded to the VistaZoo map where anyone can access it.

IQLeague - Online Intelligence Tests

Find out how your smarts rank with IQ League, a virtual forum of IQ tests and information. This fun and endlessly entertaining website brings together brainiacs, or those who think they are, to test their IQ level, and vote on various topics to rank their intelligence. With this site, visitors can take a quick 60-second test to gauge their own IQ. Keep it competitive, and see who has done the best by browsing the "smartest people" in the world.

Wikiloc - GPS Waypoints and Trails of the World

Wikiloc is an excellent tool for adventurous types who like to go on a variety of excursions without getting lost. Wikiloc is a well-designed tool that allows users to upload GPS waypoints and trails so that others can use this information to find their way while on their next adventure. The site features a Google Earth map that can be searched to show you exactly what path to take and you can search trails by country or by the name of the trail.

eduFire - A Language Community

eduFire is a great site for tutors and individuals who are looking to learn or improve their language skills. The core aspect of the site is the tutorial section. eduFire has tutors in many languages from Arabic to Portuguese. You can click on a language and a list of tutors appears. Each tutor has a profile, a photo, the cost per hour and the information on how many students they have.

CrowdSound - ‘Digg’ Your Company’s Website

Companies are finally starting to get on the social networking bandwagon. You can now submit feedback and commune with fellow consumers at a number of corporate websites ( Nike, for example). As a result, there has been an an upsurge in the number of websites created with the aim of making an Enterprise version of the social network. One of newest of these sites is CrowdSound. CrowdSound’s aims to help companies improve on customer service by infusing them with a little Web 2.0 magic.

Partner Links
– Manage your finances online with Geezeo
– Web Jobs
– CenterNetworks LinkedIn Business Group
– CenterNetworks Facebook Fan Page
– Check out SmugMug for a free trial