Kobojo is different.  The French company wants to make online board games social again – in the old-time, family and friends kind of way.  The site features a lot of classic board games everyone will recognize.  Their apps (for both social networking sites and mobiles) focus on encouraging players to interact while giving fun game play.

Many of Kobojo’s apps are on Facebook, which is where the company first got its start in 2008.  So far, they’ve bootstrapped their corporate funding, but are soon going to open for a first round of investment later this year.  The company currently employs 11 people, five of which are developers.  They are looking for more ASP.Net developers and game artists and are building their apps on the Microsoft Stack (.NET, IIS, SQL).

Kobojo operates on an SaaS (software as a service) model with many of their games offering “bonuses” or other power ups for cash.  The company sees this as a model with a big future – and they aren’t alone, billions have been spent already on these types of social gaming themes.

Chances are, if you’re playing a popular Facebook game based on a classic board game from the past, you’re playing a Kobojo game.

DocuSign is one of the more well-known of the digital document and signature companies out there.  This Web-based app allows you to easily send and receive documents (no more fax machine), quickly get legal digital signatures traded, and allows you to digitally store or print your documents both online and off.

It’s meant to be a complete contract execution service, providing security, transaction workflow, e-signature and data collection, and document storage facilities.  It’s a good example of SaaS done well.  It’s priced about right ($15-$25/month) and runs smoothly while being relatively easy to use and understand.

DocuSign has been in service for several years and just updated to include smart phone apps (Blackberry and iPhone/iPad) a few months ago.  These additions make it a great way to not only make presentations with clients and give proposals or contracts on the spot, but to easily get signatures and store them so that the office can have instant access to them without the sales team or presentation group lugging around a lot of paper.

This app is probably the best electronic document, contract, and e-signature service available for businesses of every size and it’s priced right to fit just about every business’ budget.

The site promotes transparency between providers and buyers, by asking the providers to download software that allows the buyers to watch them while they work.  Every time you sit down to work on your tasks, you will know that the buyer can see what you are doing.  Not everyone likes this way of working but if you want to work with ODesk you need to know this is how it is done.

If you are being paid by the hour and you are used to working in an office environment, you will probably get on quite well with ODesk.  Freelancers who charge by the job do not tend to like it, because it means they have to allocate specific blocks of time to their freelancing for a particular client.  This may not work well for you, and it does take away some of the spontaneity about working from home.

In short, if you want to give ODesk a try, make sure you read through all the information the site gives you about how things work.  If you are happy with the procedure you could find a lot of clients via the site.  If not, there are lots of other freelance sites to try.

If you need a job done and it is concerns ecommerce and carrying out business online, you might want to check out People Per Hour.  This is a global workforce of freelancers who have created profiles on the site to connect with potential clients.

You can find freelancers who are involved in the world of ecommerce simply by using their search facility to come up with the appropriate workers.  There is a whole section of workers who fall into the marketing, PR and sales bracket, with a whole subset of categories available to delve into as well.

Hiring extra workers on a freelance basis to take on those ecommerce jobs you don’t feel able to do yourself is an excellent way to get the results you need.  You don’t have the worry of taking on a part time or full time employee when you may not always have enough work for them.  Instead you can find people with ecommerce expertise and use them as and when you need to.

At the time of writing there were more than fifty thousand freelancers registered with the site.  They cover many different countries so if you want a freelancer based in a certain locale it should be relatively easy to find the person who is ideal for the job.  The website is set up to appeal to both freelancers and job providers, so whichever group you fall into you could end up making or saving a lot of money.

The idea is complicated to explain, but simple to understand once you see it in motion.  Merchants get the benefit of having local-centric marketing that builds via online word-of-mouth.  Shoppers have the benefit of finding local deals with local businesses which also reward them with donations to their favorite charities.  Charities get donations from shoppers who support them.

One of the aspects of Zavee that creates all of that word-of-mouth is the user reviews and business recommendations that go along with the shopping experience.  This allows locals to see what others think of a specific business, to find outlets they may not have known of before, and (of course) to find great deals.

Zavee is a good idea for a locally-based platform for sales and interactions.  Purchases can take place live and still count through the Zavee system and everyone wins in the Zavee scenario.  The concept and site are new, so participation is somewhat limited, but it appears to be growing quickly.

It’s open to all business and charity types and anyone who shops using a credit or debit card can shop through the site’s network as well.

It’s free to use and worth a try.

The Groupon idea works like this:  Every single day there is a new offer on the site.  It could be a discount on tickets of some kind, or it could be a cut price coffee or meal, or any number of other things.  The catch is that there has to be a set minimum number of people requesting the discount (known as the Groupon, instead of a coupon) for it to be valid.

This way the company providing the offer won’t get burned if not enough people are interested.  And if lots of people are interested, they get to enjoy a discount and the company gets to have some new business coming in.

This is the genius idea behind Groupon.  The site originally started in the United States, but there is now a London-based site in the UK as well.  All you have to do is sign up with a valid email address and wait for details of the latest Groupon to hit your inbox each day.  If you and enough other people apply to get it, you’ll receive the coupon.  If not, there is nothing lost.

It is this ‘please all’ kind of edge that Groupon provides which sets it apart from many other similar sites.  With a lot of good press from the likes of TechCrunch, Business Week and many others, Groupon is set to continue growing from strength to strength (and possibly from country to continent to continent).

But how can shopping become a social affair? Well, Swipely aims to calculate and store every transaction you make – whether by email receipt or  credit card connection, and then compares this to restaurant menus and product catalogs. This will lead to a system that lets people actually see what your own purchases are in real time,  connecting both retailer and consumer in a more direct manner, which (according to Swipely) will help both parties benefit (the latest deals for the consumer, and of course – a targeted customer for the retailer).

Of course, security is always a must in the social commerce world, and Swipely is no exception – all users must approve every purchase that they choose to share on their account via the online interface (although there will be an option for automated sharing).

Already Swipely have raised a staggering $7.5 million in funding, led by Index Ventures and with further support from First Round Capital and Greylock Ventures.  Davis, First Round and Conway previously helped raise $1 million for the new Social Commerce startup.

To conclude – Swipely aims to save its userbase money, whilst helping to provide growth to various markets.  Making shopping a social affair is a new concept, and Swipely aim to accomplish this in a multitude of ways – whether this will be accomplished by introducing an online game leaderboard with the highest ‘savers’, or via a Facebook-style interaction service remains to be seen.

People who register with eDelve can list any shopping deals, including rebates, two for ones, coupons or freebies, that they have found online or otherwise, along with whatever amount they wish to receive as the finder’s fee. The idea is to list deals that wouldn’t otherwise be easily found, or available, such as ones that come after purchasing a particular item, or through a special mailing list. A quick browse reveals many different coupons, saving time and money that could be well worth the small fee (which is often under a dollar).

Each user is rated for dependability after a coupon is purchased, creating a positive or negative feedback percentage. A shopper can also give a counteroffer on the finder’s fee, to try and negotiate it down. Payments are made through Paypal or Google Checkout. If a user can’t find a suitable coupon, they can add a request for one, making it as general or specific as they like, in the hope that someone can find the deal they want.

eDelve is still building up a user base, but it already has many deals listed, so it is definitely worth a look to check out the bargains.

Shoply.com hopes to fit in that space, offering storefronts for would be e-commerce sellers that are both free and easy to use.  Shoply is also a centralized marketplace where all of these storefronts are gathered together so that those wanting to buy can easily locate what they’re looking for.

Shoply offers easily-built store catalogues, working in a way similar to eBay for item listings (sans the auction language).  The site also takes care of the money handling, sending the money to the store’s owner in one of several ways (making it easy to accept payments and easier to get your money once payment is made).

Everything on Shoply is Web-based.  Setting up shop for a full-on catalog of items or just to virtual garage sale your stuff once in a while is easy and straight-forward.  Currently, however, Shoply is brand new and has little traffic.  So don’t expect to sell anything really quickly right away.  This will change with time, of course.

The site plans to monetize through a freemium model.  A Basic store costs nothing and allows up to ten products with one image each, taking a 6% sales commission (that’s less than eBay/PayPal).  A Pro and Max upgrade is available at a monthly fee of $9.99 or $19.99, both with lower commissions and costs.

Overall, the site is fun to play with and might become something, so it’s worth trying out.

ConceptFeedback is like neither of those, though OpenHallway is likely it’s most direct competition.  The biggest difference between the two is that Hallway uses anybody and everybody (so most of the testers are likely foreign to your intended market) while ConceptFeedback has panels of experts in Web design, development, marketing, and entrepreneurial business.

So reviews are not from everyday Joes, which has its advantages and disadvantages, but from experts in the fields surrounding websites as a business.  The number of reviews you’ll receive is not guaranteed, but is instead decided purely by how many people see it and decide to leave a review.  Most sites get at least 12 and many go as far as 100.

The way the ConceptFeedback community works is similar to many crowdsourcing sites for other purposes.  Reviewers are ranked by the number of reviews they’ve penned, how those reviews were rated by the receiver (a “reputation score”), and top reviewers receive extra points.  Review points can be used to get your own work reviewed (or potentially sold to others, if you think about it).

ConceptFeedback has an active community of about 5,000 reviewers to-date and the reviews mostly focus on technical, marketing, or other aspects of the site’s design.  Most of those who use the service seem to be very pleased with it.

Reviewers who’ve made five reviews can use those points to post their own concept for review.  Or for $9.99, your concept can bypass the 5-review requirement and be featured on the home page for review for a week.  That’s cheaper than any other service (worth trying) that we’ve seen in this market.