Social networks are sprouting across the internet faster than you can shake a stick at, however a social network for 3D artists is quite the rare find. Teapotters is that rare discovery. It’s your standard run of the mill community, however just knowing that it revolves around 3D work is unique in itself.

Right off the bat, you’ll have to go through a small installation of the 3D Life Player plug-in. This will allow you to view the models that other members have uploaded and give you the freedom to zoom, pan, and twist and turn the models at your leisure. Each user is able to upload their 3D work from Blender, 3D Studio Max, Maya, Poser, and Lightwave, just to name a few. Also, on the upload page there are many choices of customization for your model(s) including: privacy preference, tagging, license selection, and whether or not you wish for your model to be available for download.

On the main page there is a little summary of your activity and other various information coupled together with a gallery of thumbnails of any models that you personally uploaded. You’ll find small statistics such as a percentage of account usage, profile views, and number of times your profile has been saved by others on the sidebar. Links to your Contact List and profile editing are also openly available from your homepage. In the Edit Profile section you can change your password if needed, select your preferred 3D player (3dxml player, or virtools player), upload a picture of yourself, and decide whether you want your email address visible on your profile page for the public eyes to see. Note: using the 3dxml player requires ActiveX support. Below the main information are places to fill out more in-depth details: company name, address, website, current skills, and a brief description of yourself.

In the actual 3D interface you can pan (moving left, right, up and down), rotate the camera, zoom in and out, and re-frame the model back to its original position. You are also given the option to see the actual wireframe of each model along with the ability to smoothen the hard edges of any objects by anti-aliasing them. They also have a full screen option if you desire. You’re also able to comment on any of the models.

When viewing a model, the side bar will indicate file name, file size, object count, polygon count, surface count, vertices count, texture count, and which authoring software it was created in. If the creator has allowed it, the model and textures can freely be downloaded and experimented with by users. A counter of the amount of times a model has been download is also present. You are also enabled to add tags to models in addition to what the author had originally put for tags. Furthermore, in each model’s page there is a HTML widget giving you the code to implement it into a blog, a MySpace, or simply a normal forum. Additionally, there’s a directory listing all the currently signed up members to Teapotters. There is, of course, a listing of all the uploaded 3D models with thumbnails as well. You can sort models by favorites, and users by contributors. Models are organized by tags and the program in which they were created in is also indicated. Another nice feature is that you are able to add any member’s RSS feed to your personal feed reader to continually be up to date with any new models from that specific author.

Members have a Contact List in which they can add and sort people into a Friends List or Business List. You can manage your contacts, invite new contacts, and view your contact history in the “Manage Connections” portion of the site. They have a small “How It Works” section, describing briefly how to use Teapotters and you’ll find a demo video in this section as well, if you’re slightly confused on procedures. They also have a small blog to keep you informed on any updates done to the website. Also, some of the models that have been uploaded to Teapotters are actual models from popular games on the market currently. Who wouldn’t be at least curious to examine in detail how exactly these figures were constructed? I wish they gave members more than a single invite to give away to anyone interested in the community. However, this small downfall is easily trumped by how functional and organized the network is.

Teapotters was a nice fork in the road on the endless avenue of mundane social networks that are blanketing the internet like the plague. There aren’t many 3D networks are out there that can adequately present your work as well as Teapotters does. I’m anxious to see how well they do once they’re out of private beta.

Everyone at some point in their life has an opportunity to have a space they can call their own; whether it’s a bedroom, home office, or a closet. Curbly is a web community that lets you show off, learn, and explore those spaces. Upon entering the home page of Curbly, you are first introduced to a very inviting color scheme and design. A featured content block gives a glimpse into what the site is about: sharing, discussing, and learning about making any environment better. Whether you are a first-time home buyer, or an architect with a lifetime of experience, Curbly may have something for you.

Before I continue, keep in mind that Curbly is not a word, but if I were to define it to put the site into context, it would be used as an adjective describing the curb appeal an environment has. For example; “Your home is looking very curbly!” or, “This room would be much curblier if it had a new sofa,” or even, “Solution Watch looks so curbly on your web browser!”

Signing up takes just a minute and you can join as a standard Curbly user or a Curbly Pro. With both account options being free, a standard Curbly user is typically a person who has interest in making their home curbly, where Curbly Pros are those who know what it takes to make your home curblier.

Every Curbly user has their own profiles where they can post photos, blog, and create clippings, which I will discuss in just a moment. Creating a profile is easy and it’s just a matter of filling in the blanks to make it personal. You can also customize the design of your profile to better reflect who you are. If you don’t have much experience with code, you can simply choose one of the three styles they provide. I went ahead and created my own style sheet seen in use on my Curbly profile. You will also find the standard, but necessary social networking features like friend lists, profile commenting, discussions, and ways of finding people.

One thing that makes Curbly a great place is that when you make a post on your blog, not only does it show up on your profile, but also on the main page of Curbly and in a topic page that relates to your post. Outside eyes immediately see your post and you can expect your moment of fame with a comment or two soon after posting.

There are three types of content you can publish. These include writing a blog post, posting photos for others to see, and posting clippings of things around the web that interest you. There are also five different sections users can view or contribute that make up Curbly:

How To: If you are looking for a DIY (Do It Yourself) project, you can find plenty of things to do here. From building a Spaceship Table to finding the recipe for a great tasting home office.

Inspiration: Whether it’s cardboard furniture or the most awesome home theatre in the world, you will find something that inspires you to make your home look curblier.

News: If you have been waiting desperately for a sale at your favorite stores or are waiting to hear what others think about Brovo’s Top Design show, you will find the latest news in this section.

Questions: For people like me who don’t have a clue how to do something to make your environment more curbly, ask the Cubly users. You can expect some great answers and advice from Curbly Pros and standard Curbly users. You can get help with things like decorating your living room or advice on how to bend plywood so you can create that skateboard half pipe in your room that you’ve been dreaming of since 10 years old.

Talk: Feel free to say anything on your mind in the Talk section. Want to discuss the Valentines Day Google logo or brag about finding a new home? This is the place to do it.

Writing a post is simple. It even has a WYSIWYG editor allowing you to style and format your content. At first, the lack of drafts and post previewing didn’t seem so crucial. However, after adding numerous photos, headlines, and video in one of my posts, I quickly realized the growing stress leading up to the save button. After clicking “Save”, I found that my post wasn’t formated the way I anticipated. Being that I am a graphic designer, I immediately panicked after seeing it on the main page, in my blog, and in the “How to” section. Thankfully there is a “Edit” link that I used multiple times after posting until it was at it’s intended perfection. Once posted, you begin to feel like Martha Stewart’s upcoming competition. Don’t be surprised if I turn into a interior design consultant after a year of posting on Curbly instead of reviewing start-ups here at Solution Watch… hypothetically speaking of course.

You will also find a feature on Curbly called “Clippings”. Clippings let you save images and links from around the web that you can display on your profile or website for others to see. Using the Curbly bookmarklet, you can go to any site that has an image you like, click the bookmarklet, and post about it within seconds. There is even a widget for your clippings that you can place on your own website for others to see. This is one feature I immediately got addicted to. I thoroughly enjoy posting my Clippings.

Overall, Curbly is a great community. I have met many neat Curbly users, although, it was difficult to find them without knowing where to look first (cough, cough), and once I found them, I wasn’t able to send them a private message (cough, cough). Otherwise, I found that Curbly has become the answer to many of my living space dreams and aspirations, not to mention the frequent Curbly contests that can better your chances of living that dream (this one being the latest).

Watch out Martha Stewart! I am Tim Benzinger and I have a profile on Curbly!

Looking for an easy way to boost your productivity? Then turn on your instant messenger and head on over to IMified, a new service that enables users to access services like Basecamp, Google Calendar, and Remember the Milk from an instant messaging client. Now, I know that instant messaging can be a huge productivity killer, but you’re going to want to turn that client back on for this. With IMified, users can manage todo lists, save notes, create reminders, and even add milestones to a Basecamp project. Just send an instant message to IMified and you’re good to go. You don’t even have to create an account. What’s most appealing about IMified for me is that I can manage tasks and add messages to Basecamp without opening a browser window. I’m also loving the note taking application built into IMified which works similar to Sabifoo, another instant messaging buddy built specifically for note taking.

Simply send a message to IMified to get started (AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Gtalk, and Jabber are all supported). An account will instantly be created for you preset with three IMified applications: Notes, Reminders, and Todos. These applications are not only helpful, but make for a great starting point as you learn how to navigate around IMified. Navigating to a service is as simple as sending the numbers associated with each menu item and sending the letter “m” brings you back to the start message. IMified also has a web-based interface where you can update your settings and add additional services (send “7″ and click the link to get there). There are currently nine services outside of IMified that you can add to your account: Google Calendar, Backpack, Basecamp, 30 Boxes, Remember the Milk, WordPress, Blogger, Movable Type and TypePad.

The beauty of IMified is that all of the applications that you use are combined into one small service accessible through an instant messenger on your computer or mobile phone. However, because of the limited functionality with instant messengers, features are minimal. With Google Calendar, you can add and remove events as well as view upcoming and past events, but you cannot assign meta data or reminders to the events like you can on the web-based solution. The WordPress service allows you to simply add a title and body for a post and publish the post to your blog. Also, the Basecamp integration allows you to add messages, manage todo lists, and add milestones to a project. It may not sound like much, but having the ability to do all of that instantly without opening a browser is very helpful.

IMified also has a very helpful feature that lets you create shortcuts for specific tasks in a service. For example, you can create a one word command that lets you add a task to your todo list, which is much simpler than going through multiple menus and then adding a task. You can also add some text after a shortcut to automatically use it with the task at hand. So I have a shortcut for adding notes where I can type: “note [text i want to add as a note]” and a shortcut for adding tasks with “todo [the task description]”. So far, adding information with shortcuts has worked out great, but I can’t say the same with shortcuts for viewing information. When I write “viewnotes” to view all of my saved notes, IMified returns nothing and seems to only work when used in the service itself. Shortcuts also don’t seem to work when a service requires multiple responses to multiple menus. For example, I can’t add an event description and the date for the event at the same time with a shortcut Google Calendar. These are only minor problems though and I’m more than satisfied with the shortcuts that add information quickly.

Granted that the services IMified connects you with can all be used regularly in a web browser, it’s nice having the ability to quickly send a message to perform a task. If I want to add an update for a projects status in Basecamp, I can simply use IMified rather than opening a browser, logging in to Basecamp, navigating to the project, and submitting the message. There’s still room for improvement though, of course. For one, it doesn’t seem to send error messages if you send something in the wrong format, like a date for an event. Also, I really enjoy Sabifoo and how it creates a public page and RSS feed for all of your notes, which is something I would love to see with IMified. Maybe a way to view your tasks from the Todo service and notes from the Notes service online. In all, I love the simplicity of IMified and how I can easily access services that I use everyday from my instant messenger.

(via GenBeta)