Sandor Panton of Top5Jamaica.Com, in association with The Gleaner Online, guides you through what's new, cool and interesting on the Internet. From Jamaica to the wider Caribbean and the rest of the World, this is the 'Week on the Web'.
You may have heard of Ebay.Com, the immensely popular auction website where almost anyone can buy and sell just about anything and everything. You may also have heard about Hi5.Com, a social networking website that's particularly popular among young people. Now, consider a website which combines elements of a bank, Hi5.Com and Ebay.Com. This is Prosper.Com, a newly launched U.S.-based website which allows Users to borrow and lend money amongst themselves.
How Prosper.Com works: Lenders deposit their money with Prosper, which then holds it in an interest-earning account. Then, Lenders can either: (1) Review individual loan requests from potential borrowers and determine whether or not they want to allocate any of their own funds to meet specific requests or (2) Allow Prosper to allocate their funds to borrowers who meet certain criteria.
Lenders can choose to finance all or just a part of a given loan. Borrowers can choose to join certain groups of other Borrowers with similar interests (in order to appear more attractive to Lenders). For example, one of the current featured groups on Prosper.Com is the "Seventh-Day Adventist Borrower & Lenders Group". How does Prosper.Com plan to make money? By charging the Borrower one percent of the total loan amount. Interesting concept, lets see if it lasts!
Google launches yet another tool - Google Calendar
Google recently launched a test version of its latest tool - an online calendar which allows Users to update and share their plans and schedules with others. If you already have a free Google (Gmail.Com) e-mail address, it can be integrated easily into this service as well, allowing you for example to create a calendar notation from an e-mail that you may have received.
Try it for yourself - http://www.google.com/calendar
Interesting Gimmick
Blingo.com is a U.S. search engine which hands out random prizes (including movie tickets, gift cards and iPods) to Users of its website. Unfortunately, we Jamaican residents are not eligible - it is open only to "legal residents of the United States".
Websites of the Week
http://www.digitaldubz.com - launched just this month, the Jamaican-based Digital Dubz takes the serious business of dubplate cutting online, providing a service that should be particularly useful to the tremendous number of non-Jamaican sound systems.
http://www.gosavlamar.com - this portal to the South Coast town of Savanna-la-mar is another of the increasing number of sources of authentic indigenous Jamaican content on the Web.
Top 5 articles viewed on Jamaica Gleaner week ending April 15, 2006
1. IMMIGRATION MATTERS - Many Jamaicans face deportation from Canada
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060411/news/news2.html 7,651 views
2. Accept sex workers, says Lascelles Chin
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060411/lead/lead5.html 6,813 views
3. Frome managers, senior officers in hiding
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060412/lead/lead1.html 6,106 views
4. Acid victim pleads for help
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/
gleaner/20060410/lead/lead4.html 5,687 views
5. Jamaican on death row in Florida gets extension
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060412/lead/lead8.html 5,663 views
