By: The staff

In honor of Labor Day week, we here at GreatStartups.com are taking some time off.   We will resume posting exciting new startups on September 07, 2010.

Labor Day conjures images of end of the summer beach parties and regular folks relaxing from the stress of their everyday lives.  However, the origins of Labor Day are not so peaceful.

The first Labor Day in the United States was celebrated on September 5, 1882 in New York City.  In the aftermath of the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the US military and US Marshals during the 1894 Pullman Railroad Strike, President Grover Cleveland put reconciliation with Labor as a top political priority.

Fearing further conflict, legislation making Labor Day a national holiday was rushed through Congress unanimously and signed into law a mere six days after the end of the strike.  Cleveland was also concerned that aligning a US labor holiday with existing international May Day celebrations would stir up negative emotions linked to the Haymarket Affair.  All 50 U.S. states have made Labor Day a state holiday.
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By: Co-Editor, RB:

This next site is neither an oracle nor some sci-fi movie. It is simply a new way to compile news and its hook is kind of fun.

Brikut.com is a free service operated out of Sydney, Australia. Brikut.com provides local, regional, and international stories that are yet to happen (hence their slogan “stories of tomorrow”).

In a way it is like a news site, but the stories concern things that are soon to occur (e.g. Afghanistan Parliamentary Elections on Sept. 18, the new Queen Elizabeth formal naming ceremony on Oct. 11, and Earth Hour Day 2011 on Mar. 26).

At Brikut.com, users can get information about things that will happen in the future: when it is and the countdown. There is a little bit about the story and where the story is sourced from, and other user comments and hypes. Stories are all contributed by the users.
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By: Co-Editor, RB:

We have previously covered online classified ad sites such as ListHere.com  and GlasyAds.com.
GlasyAds.com enables people to create one classified ad and then have it posted on leading online marketplaces.

ListHere.com is a free online classified service overlaid with business offerings for SMBs. It allows users to have the capability to search multiple cities, states, and any combination thereof.

In addition to the sites we have covered, there are dozens of classified ad sites that have been operating for many years.

A new site called Treidr.com out of London has now thrown its hat into this crowded ring. Treidr.com is a free classifieds website where you post or search classified ads with photos in categories like jobs, personals, real estate, pets, cars and more.
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By: Co-Editor, RB:

We stumbled across a really useful website that can be a real time saver.

Launched in beta in Canada in January and in the United States in July, PinBud.com is a one-stop web application enabling users to find and contact service providers in their area. Users can connect to multiple businesses using a single online service request form, saving time and effort on a wide range of household, automotive, personal, or professional services.

A business will not only list and describe its services, but will receive direct sales leads in detailed, targeted customer requests. PinBud also offers the possibility to post renovation projects or finished jobs so users can share or submit them for comments to their Facebook friends, while recommending their preferred contractors.

PinBud is not just a business directory, a reviews portal, a job matching service, or a classifieds site. It is all of the above.

The site takes the basic yellow pages concept to a new social media level, PinBud’s goal is to change the way consumers look for local service providers for their home, car, finances, health, or pet.
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By: Co-Editor, RB:

For those who are 2.0 renaissance men or women, there is a new product that might interest you.

MyVoxtopia.com offers Voxtopia. Voxtopia provides smart, virtual phone numbers in over 40 countries that allows users to forward calls anywhere in the world for pennies, screen and block unwanted callers, make cheap international phone calls, make conference calls, get faxes and voicemails sent to email and much more.

Voxtopia is a product of WorldTalk Incorporated, a privately owned, global Internet Telecommunications provider specializing in next generation voice, video and mobile technologies. WorldTalk provides international consumers, small-to-medium sized enterprises, and Internet Telephony Service Providers (ITSPs) with cutting edge, inexpensive communications tools and services. They are located in Los Angeles, California.

Using Voxtopia, you can manage call settings, view instant call history, manage contacts and download your messages anytime online. You can sign up for free and receive one free US phone number. They provide similar features for two other killer services (google voice and ringcentral) but in a combined package, with extra goodies and available in over 40+ countries. They also give free phone numbers away. They also have plugins for other great services: Highrise, Twitter, Facebook (it allows Facebook users to call you from the web without giving away your number).
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By: Co-Editor, RB:

There are plenty of companies and firms offering software to help you beat the financial markets. Some of this software is very sophisticated and very expensive.

Here is a new company that provides free risk managmenet and free portfolio management technologies. PortfolioRunner.com is a platform providing stock exchange trading recommendations and investment portfolio management tools. With PortfolioRunner you can get personalized trading recommendations from a set of various investment strategies – technical, fundamental and social. In addition, you can manage and reduce investment risks with our proprietary portfolio risk management platform.

Portfolio Runner is a ready-to-use trading recommendations source. Buy and sell advices you receive are specially refined for your portfolio only. The system personalizes all the recommendations in accordance with your risk inclination, portfolio size and structure, available investment capital, and other factors, so that you receive particular and focused portfolio recommendations right on time.

The company PortfolioRunner LLC was established in 2009 out of Austin, Texas by a group of seasoned professionals in the areas of stock exchange trading, mathematics, information technology and marketing. Prior to joining PortfolioRunner the founders of the company have been leading successful investment firms, global IT services providers and top research labs.
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By: Co-Editor, RB:

Can anyone remember a time when everyone did not walk around with a bottle of water in their backpack, hand or purse? Now a water bottle is almost as common an accessory as a cell phone.

Yet most people who are walking around with water bottles are not drinking water from a faucet or public fountain, but water they’ve purchased from a store or vending machine. This reflects a popular idea that bottled water is more pure, healthy and safe than plain tap water. Unfortunately, some recent studies have challenged this understandable assumption. Some bottled water is merely tap water that has undergone some basic filtering. Even actual spring water often contains contaminants. Regulations vary concerning water purity, and as long as the manufacturers conform to the local standards, they are allowed to call their product “spring” or “purified” water.

“Distilled” water is pure H2O but lacks minerals and nutrients that can make other water healthy. The best solution is to use a good water filter. Yet, how should you carry your water if you are one of those people that need water by your side at all times?

Check out Alexbottle.com which offers a unique product. ALEX is a stainless steel modular drinking vessels that is designed to open up in the middle for easy cleaning and can compact to half its size when empty. ALEX seeks to fuse functionality with fashion and ultra-premium design.
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By: Co-Editor, RB:

In June, just before the World Cup, we reviewed a company called Konkuri.com. At Konkuri.com you can create your own tournament site, share results, get feeds, comment on matches, and so on. Konkuri.com’s goals are to help people manage and publish tournaments for any kind of sport or game.

Here is another site that is kind of in the same space but at the same time it is very different.

Sportmeets.com launched in late April out of Glasgow is an online application designed to make recreational sports more enjoyable for the players and the organizers alike.

Miro and Peter, two Slovak friends and sports enthusiasts who met during their studies at the University of Glasgow, started the site. Their experience with running the university volleyball club and participating in a variety of sports on campus made them realize the significant amount of work and time that the person in charge of a sports group typically has to devote just to set up a game or a sporting event. The hassle that comes with inefficient communication, late cancellations and sharing of booking fees will be well familiar to anyone who has been involved in grassroots sports.
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By: Co-Editor, RB:

Bravo’s latest reality show (produced by Sarah Jessica Parker’s production company among others) takes the Project Runway and Top Chef model and applies it to art. Work Of Art: The Next Great Artist  brings together fourteen aspiring artists to compete for a solo show at the Brooklyn Museum. The show has been a modest success for Bravo but many in the art world have been critical about a so-called “art competition”.

Well, art competition is exactly what the folks at VoteForArt.com are offering.
A new venture launched by the large apparel company MV Sport out of New York City hosts graphic design contests for major organizations, where the winning design is based on votes from fans (VFA members) and are printed on t-shirts and sold at the organization’s retail location and in the site’s online store.

Since its launch in January 2010, they have held contests for major organizations including, Purdue University, University of Maryland, Texas A&M, Kansas State University, University of Wisconsin, Arizona State University, Moondance Jam Rock Festival and Pratt Institute to name a few.
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By: Co-Editor, RB:

Here is a cool new site that is banking on the death of business cards. Given current technology an argument can be made that the exchange of business cards is anachronistic.

Qubrit.com, new launched out of London, is a fast growing social network which allows you to create your virtual business card and exchange it with friends, colleagues and others. The most important feature of Qubrit, is that you will always keep the contact details of others updated. People tend to change their phones, emails, addresses, and even close down their social network profiles (like recent examples of Facebook accounts closures).

Qubrit’s main feature is that you have business cards of others, which will always be up to date, with the most current contact information, such as mobile, phone, email, address, skype, facebook, and twitter profile links. Once a person amends his business card information, everyone who has his virtual business card will see his most up-to-date info.

When you exchange contacts, the info will automatically be saved in your contact list online as soon as you go home and write that “Nice meeting you” follow-up email. So why does contact info even need to cross the digital threshold if it’s only going back to cyberspace?
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