Reference number: CH000721
What things to do when bored on the Internet?
Question:What things to do when bored on the Internet?
Answer:If you have access to the Internet the possibilities of
things you can do is endless. There should be no reason you should be bored or
can't find anything to do. Below is a full listing of our top suggestions to do
on the Internet.
Learning and research
Shop - Online stores and Auctions
Multimedia - Music, radio, podcasts, videos, vlog, webcam
Play Games
Improve yourself
Directions, Maps and Geographic information
Get fit, find a
date, or locate a social event
Keep up with current events
Communicate - Chat, E-mail, Forums, IM, blogs, and VoIP
Surf
and find popular pages
Learning and research
The Internet contains an endless supply of information, have questions,
learn about something you enjoy, or learn something new, you will find it on the Internet.
Using any popular search engine you can find anything. See
document CH000082 for additional information and tips on using search engines
if you're having troubles finding something.
In addition to simply searching for what you're looking for
the below community driven projects are other great examples of learning
more on the Internet.
- Wikipedia,
Wikibooks, and
Encyclopedia of Life (EOL)
are all fantastic examples of community driven projects (wikis)
that have an almost endless amount of information that is all generated by
visitors.
-
E-books - There are hundreds of thousands of books that have been
scanned and are available on the Internet. Visit this page to see sites capable
of doing this.
Shop - Online stores and Auctions
Internet shopping is another popular and fun thing to do on the Internet. Below are a few examples of popular online stores, auction
sites, and other retail related pages.
- Woot -
Lists the best deal on the Internet daily.
- EBay - The most popular auction location
and web site on the Internet. Allows any user to sell almost anything to millions of other users and/or buy millions of different items from other users.
- Amazon -
The largest retail site on the Internet that sells books, DVDs, games, electronics, toys, clothing, and much more.
- Craiglook -
Fantastic site that takes RSS feeds from
the very popular
craigslist site and makes finding and browsing craigslist listings a
lot more enjoyable.
- RetailMeNot
- Dedicated site that lists coupons to major retail and online stores.
- Froogle - A free service provided by Google that allows users to search millions of different online stores for the best price on almost any product.
- iTunes - One of the most popular destinations to download music for Apple iPod.
Multimedia - Music, radio, podcasts,
videos, vlogs, and webcam
With more users using broadband, multimedia
rich websites are becoming a popular destination. Although
modem users can still do almost all of the below suggestions,
these may not be as enjoyable if you're connecting to the Internet this
way. Below is our favorite multimedia related pages on the Internet.
Music
With the introduction of MP3 files, downloadable music
is another very popular thing to do on the Internet. Below is a short-listing of some of the services that allows users to legally download music from thousands of different artists.
- iTunes - Apples popular music service that allows users to
browse and download music for their Apple iPods.
- Napster - Another popular source for downloading music for your audio devices
that has now been made legal.
Radio / streaming audio
Internet radio and streaming audio is another fantastic
service for broadband users. Today, many of the audio players, such as Microsoft Windows Media Player, Winamp, and the iTunes player, already include a radio function and simply opening these programs would allow you to play radio stations for almost every type of music.
In addition to these players, there are several websites that list millions of different stations and users' play lists,
and online radio for stations in your local area. Below is a short listing of some of these sites.
- Pandora - A fantastic service that allows you to specify a song or artist you like and then generate a live radio station based off the songs you like.
- Slacker - Another
fantastic site that allows you to easily find radio stations and top
streaming music.
- Radio-locator - A great
page that will list all the radio stations in your local area and links to audio feeds, if available.
- Live365 - Another great service that lists thousands of different types of stations, makes recommendations, etc.
- Last.fm - Yet another fantastic site for finding more about music artists, listening to radio stations, finding related artists, etc.
Music lyrics
There are dozens of different pages to find the lyrics to any of
your favorite songs. Try Lyrics.com
to find your favorite songs lyrics.
Podcasts / Talk radio
Internet podcast and talk radio shows are radio broadcasts where one or more people talk about something they enjoy, something interesting, about a service, etc. See our dictionary podcast definition for additional information about this term and a listing of technology related podcasts.
Videos
Videos are also now becoming a great source of entertainment on the Internet. Below are a few locations where you can watch videos of all types.
See document CH000755 for other locations of posting and viewing videos and other files.
Vlog
A vlog, or video log, is similar to a blog except it's a video. See our vlogging dictionary definition for additional information about this term and vlog services.
TV and Movie research
By far one of the most interesting an informative locations on the Internet to find information about movies such as cast names, directors, year made, awards, etc. is
IMDB (short for Internet Movie DataBase).
Want to browse through movie posters back to 1913 try
IMP Awards. How about getting
the full script of movies? try
IMSDb.
Webcam
Online Webcams allow you to
easily peer into almost any other part of the world. There are millions of
online webcams around the world and many sites that allow users to communicate
via webcam.
- EarthCam - Our
favorite and in our opinion the best place to quickly find live webcams from
around the world.
- Stickam,
Ustream, and
Justin.tv are all examples of online
streaming services that allow anyone to stream live video from their computers.
Images and Art
- Flickr - By far
one of the most used and respected image sites on the Internet that allows
everyone to upload, share, and view pictures of almost everything.
- deviantART -
Fantastic page that contains a wide collection of community uploaded art and
pictures.
- Cuteoverload -
A great site for those of you who enjoy viewing the cute things in life.
CD research Similar to the IMDB, the
CDDB or Gracenote is a fantastic location to research and find more out about music artists and each of the CD's they've produced.
Games
Online games are another popular Internet activity enjoyed by people of all ages.
Many online games are easily played by simply visiting a website. Below is a listing of some of these sites.
- Yahoo
Games, Miniclip,
Pogo,
iWin, Shockwave,
and Newgrounds
are all great pages containing thousands of free online games for for
users of all ages. These games are often
Flash, Shockwave, or
Java and can be easily played through
your browser without having to download and install the game.
- Second Life
- A fascinating online world which you can connect to freely, where
hundreds of thousands of other real people have created their own place to
live, shops, clothing, worlds, and more.
- FreeSlots - A free and
somewhat addicting site that has dozens of different online playable slot
machines.
In addition to the above examples, there are thousands of other online game sites that have dozens of other types of games. Simply searching for "online games" or "flash games" will return an almost endless supply of games.
Also see
this popular forum post on our site for other free downloadable games.
Improve yourself
Improve yourself and your abilities by practicing what you're not
good at and/or watch how to videos. Below are some different examples.
- Sites like Howcast,
VideoJug and
Thisishowyoudoit
have a wealth of fantastic how to videos on how to do pretty much anything. For
example, learn a new language, how to play an instrument, how to dance, how to
cook or make a special dish, how to do magic, or improve in your favorite sport.
- HowStuffWorks
- Ever wonder how something works, this is your site. HowStuffWorks goes into
great deal on how things in the world work.
- Mental_floss -
Another great page that gives you fascinating tibits of knowledge every day,
brain teasers, and more.
- Learn to type - Type slow? Practice typing
and read through our suggestions on learning how to type faster.
- 43 Things -
Post and share your goals with others, see the most popular goals, and work with
the community in completing your life goals.
Directions, Maps and Geographic information
Finding directions and getting maps to almost anywhere in the world is also becoming another popular destination on the Internet. See our
maps dictionary definition for a listing of some of the services.
Get fit, find a date, or locate a
local event
Get fit
There are dozens of locations on the Internet that can help you get in better physical shape, track your fitness progress, suggest workouts, etc. One of our favorite sites is
DailyBurn formerly known as Gyminee.
Find a date
There are dozens of online dating sites and sites that allow for
others to meet new friends. One of our favorite places that does both is
PlentyOfFish.
Away from computer
There are dozens of online services that lists local events,
meetings, and reviews in your area of the World. Some of our favorites are:
Meetup,
Upcoming, and
Yelp.
Keep up with current events
There are millions of news sites around the world to keep up with
current events. However, there are a few gems among them. Below are our
favorites.
- Google News -
Yet another fantastic service from Google that uses bots to go out and gather
news articles from everywhere on the Internet and then properly organize them
into a page of easy to read headlines.
- MediaStorm -
Fascinating and interesting site that takes the best stories from TV and radio
and puts them in a intuitive multimedia format.
- Popurls - A site
that brings all the most popular web pages articles to one large listing.
- TED - Great site
that brings the smartest people in the world to share ideas and thoughts that
are both informative and inspirational.
- Current - Another
great site that brings a community driven site to find the latest news and
interesting things going on in the world.
- FARK - Great page
that takes all the news headlines from around the world and puts them in an easy
to read and follow format.
- Newsmap - Fantastic site that takes Google news and prints it out in
a map like format showing most popular stories in larger format.
Communicate - Chat, E-mail, Forums, IM, blogs, and VoIP
Communicating with friends, family, and other people all over the world is one of the most popular things to do on the Internet. Below are common ways to do this.
Social networking
Social networking sites are the most popular destination for Internet users of all ages. Not only are these places a great way to create a presence on the Internet but also a fantastic place to connect with all your current and past friends, family, and co-workers. One of the most popular Social networking sites today and a great place to start is
Facebook. See
our
social networking definition page
for alternatives.
Chat
Chat is a popular method of having a live text communication with other users who are interested in the same things you are. See our chat dictionary definition for additional information and examples of places to chat on the Internet.
E-mail
E-mail is by far one of the most popular methods of communicating on the Internet. Anyone who is connected to the Internet or has access to the Internet will have one or more e-mail addresses. If you do not have an e-mail address or want an additional e-mail address consider setting up a webmail account. See our
webmail dictionary definition for additional information and examples.
Forums / Bulletin boards
A forum is a place for users to post questions, messages, and other conversations and allow hundreds and even thousands of users to participate in something they enjoy. For example, the Computer Hope forum is a location where users can ask questions about computers and talk about computers.
Search for a forum relating to a topic you're interested in an become a
member. For example, a search for "acura car forum" would find results for
forums relating to the Acura car.
Blogs
A blog, or weblog, is a location for a person to post a log or diary of their life, or about something they enjoy. Blogs allow you to create and run your own place on the Internet easily and will often attract other users interested in you and/or the things you enjoy. See our blog dictionary definition for additional information about this term and examples of the services you can use to create your own blog.
VoIP
Users who have broadband connections can use VoIP to talk to other users all around the world, much like a phone. See our
VoIP dictionary definition for additional information about this technology and some services that provide it.
Surf and find popular pages
Something most people will find themselves doing often on the Internet is going from one page to another page just randomly surfing the Internet. A fantastic site and service that helps you get the most out of surfing is StumbleUpon, which allows you to only surf pages people or other friends have found interesting allowing you to find the most interesting pages on the Internet. Another great page for finding interesting pages on the Internet is
Digg.
Finally, if you're just looking for something in general consider
just searching for it. If you can think of
it, it's almost a definite that it's on the Internet.
Additional information:
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