BBB’s Best Buys From 2008

by Crys Williams on 2009.04.23

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I’m just starting to look at receipts for my 2008 taxes and getting my first comprehensive look at last year’s spending. So, yeah, I had to file an extension and my “Best of 2008″ list is being published a third of the way into 2009.

Anyway.

Reviewing my expenses, a few purchases turned out to be total shit, but 95% of my business spending went to stuff I would pay for again, and in the case of subscriptions and memberships, I do indeed pay for them again…and again and again. And again. And I don’t mind a bit because all of them pay for themselves in some way or another—

Online App Licenses & Subscriptions

Market Samurai

Market Samurai was only $69 when I paid for it, but it would have been worth the price even if I had bought it at the $149 it’s selling at now. I am a confessed domain whore, and it did two things for me: 1) helped me determine which of my domains were worthless keyword-wise, and 2) kept me from buying anymore worthless domains…saving me $180 in domain renewals and $150 in new domain purchases (so far). Follow them on Twitter @noblesamurai

Picnik

Golly, I fell head over heels for Picnik last spring, and practically threw the $25 annual subscription fee at them for ad-freeness and extra features. Super easy to upload images whether that means uploading from my PC or plucking photos directly from Flickr (appropriately licensed, of course). Easy crop and resize, special effects, “stickers” and captions, and I can access it from anywhere. Double yum. Follow them on Twitter @picnik

Clicky Analytics

Yes, yes, Google Analytics is free, but Clicky is dead sexy and has built-in Twitterness. Also, Clicky stats are real-time and Google’s most definitely aren’t. Don’t get me wrong, I do use Google Analytics, but the combined featureset of the two services is better than either one on its own. It was totally worth $30/year to upgrade from the Free account to the Blogger account and monitor more sites with a longer history. Follow them on Twitter @getclicky

Other Apps

These other apps deserve more space, but I don’t have it. I’ll briefly say that:

  • Glance is the super-simplest bestest screenshare service in the world ($50/mth),
  • Snagit‘s  autoscroll feature is the perfect thing when I’m archiving web content for later ($40), and
  • Carbonite saved my ample ass with quick (and critical) file recovery at least 3 times last year, well worth the $50/yr.

Product/Process Testing

Moo

Moo‘s printing services deserve their own post, and one day they will have it. Today is not that day. But yes, it is absolutely true that you can order 100 mini cards and put a different image on each one. Well worth $20 to see that their interface is kind and forgiving, straightforward and painless. And now they’re in the US so Americans won’t have to wait 2 weeks in sweaty anticipation of that glorious little white box. Follow them on Twitter @overheardatmoo

Qoop

I don’t know who names these printing companies. I do tend do go, “OoooOOO!” when I get my order, but it’s not like they test that in a focus group. Or maybe they do. Anyway, Qoop has heaps of printing services, but I tried creating postcards  from vacation photos, which they then mailed for me. I wrote different messages in different fonts and mailed them to different addresses. Way simple, way fun, way worth the $5 to try it out.

Other Stuff

iStockPhoto

I never regret money spent on credits at iStockPhoto. They have an outrageously large collection of royalty-free stock photos that is blissfully cheap. Cheap enough for blog post imagery when a Creative Commons search at Flickr doesn’t work out. Twelve credits used to cost $13 and now they cost $18, but I really don’t care about the increase. They are still way, way cheaper than other stock art of the same quality. Follow them on Twitter @istockhelp

Ebooks

I downloaded an absurd number of free ebooks last year to read and review and never got around to the reading or the reviewing. The few ebooks I paid for were worth every penny (because they either made or saved me money), were read multiple times, and are on the top of the virtual stack when I get to book reviews:

Giving love and support

A few bloggers called out for support last year (for themselves and others), and online services like LibraryThing and online events like NaNoWriMo (@nanowrimo) operate on the kind of love that arrives via PayPal. I also sent small donations to developers, like for FireFTP—among the handiest FireFox plugins in my universe.

Whew!

Okay, that’s the lot. This was much more fun than doing my taxes, but they’re a-calling and I’d better answer :)

Suggestions and questions are welcome, of course, and I’d love to hear what you’ve bought in the last year or so that really worked for you.

Photo credit: andrewarchy

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