Interesting beneficial uses of the Web?

I’m collecting examples of interesting ways in which people use various online services for their benefit. Of course, I can come up with lots of hypotheticals and examples from my own life, but it’s helpful to have concrete cases from the world at large.

Here, for example, is an interesting case of IT being put to use for the potential benefit of folks in a realm having little to do with IT. It’s about the use of Google Earth to back up claims about the value of some land that the government in India wants to acquire from farmers for limited compensation. The piece doesn’t say whether the use of these images ultimately led to a different outcome, but the potential is there.

Another relevant example is how people exploit spelling errors on ebay listings to get good deals. Because most people searching for those items don’t find them, there is much less of a bidding war and the final price is lower than would be otherwise. There are now even Web sites that help you exploit this, for example, eBooBoos does the guessing on your behalf. The results of a search on “turtle” yield items such as a turle neck sweater or a trutle box. (One wonders why ebay hasn’t worked on this issue in-house, but that’s another matter.)

I am looking for other examples concerning the beneficial uses of IT by average folks in particular, although interesting uses by super techies are welcomed as well. I’m not so much interested in (at this time) cases of xyz Web site helping to deal with other realms of IT uses (e.g. a handy tool for following blog posts), but uses that have a relatively direct impact on other realms of life as well. If you can share pointers to articles like the one above regarding the farmers in India that would be great. I also welcome stories from personal experiences. This is all related to some talks and papers I’m working on. Thanks!

2 Responses to “Interesting beneficial uses of the Web?”

  1. Noor Says:

    I don’t think this is what you’re looking for but there is a small community of pedometer-wearing people who use WalkerTracker. All of the data is self-report and I find myself getting really competitive over something as silly as my daily step counts.

  2. Mark Says:

    I have a friend who is vastly more successful than I am because 20 years ago he spotted a newspaper help wanted ad with the heading “Beditorial” instead of “Editorial.’ He was the only remotely qualified applicant and he got the job.

    Of course had the ad run without the “B’ many more qualified people would have applied and neither of us would have gotten the job.

    How does this translate to web site errors? I have regularly scooped the competion by searching Google news by deliberately using common mispellings.