12 Most Useful Sites for Off-Beat Shareable Content

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Social platforms are great for making business contacts. But, as we all know, business contacts are human beings – and we all enjoy a good laugh, a remarkable picture, or a bit of off-beat news. Livening up your shared content on Facebook, Google Plus, or Twitter with some items of interest on the not-so-serious side of life can help people connect with you in new ways, and makes you a more valuable resource. These links are also a good source of retweets, if you’re into that sort of thing.

So, what are some of the best places to get off-beat shareable content? Here are some of the proven sources I’ve used over time.

1. Popurls.com

One of the original consolidation sites, pulling interesting headlines, pictures and videos from all over the web. Refreshed daily. Loads of links from all over the place. This site was one of the inspirations for…

2. AllTop.com

Guy Kawasaki’s mega-consolidation site of links, catalogued by theme and interest area. The magazine rack of the Internet. Great place to discover new blogs and other resources.

3. BookOfJoe.com

Book of Joe is one of my original resources, curated daily by Joe Stirt, the blogging anesthesiologist from Virginia. Always great tidbits, and quite unpredictable.

4. Coudal.com

Coudal Partners has been feeding interesting links on this well-designed site for years – the content runs the gamut, though with more of an artsy/design focus. Don’t miss the MoOM (Museum of Online Museums) Gallery.

5. Seehere.blogspot.com/

The Look At This blog has a higher level of weird – you have to wonder where these folks get the time to find and link to all this stuff. Gems abound.

6. Dilbert.com

What’s a day without Dilbert? I get the daily email, and will link to the best ones and share them in my stream.

7. Apod.nasa.gov/apod/

Astronomy Picture of the Day. Even if you’re not into heavenly bodies, some of the daily pix that show up here are absolutely glorious and share-worthy..

8. Presurfer.blogspot.com/

The Presurfer, “Your Daily Dose of Diversion”, has a simpler blog post format instead of lists of links. Always worth a scan. Another site similar to Presurfer: arbroath.blogspot.com/

9. Darkroastedblend.com/

Dark Roasted Blend is an overwhelming cornucopia of off-beat. An entire day can be lost here is you’re not careful.

10. TheOnion.com

These people are hysterical. The production quality, esp. with the video sections, has gone way up in recent year. The Onion can be crude, and some articles are NSFW, but if you are looking for off-beat – this is the center of the universe.

11. Boston.com/bigpicture

Boston.com shares high-quality, often striking images from news and life. Each entry has a theme, and multiple pictures telling the story. If there’s a big deal happening somewhere in the world, you’ll often see the best pictures here a day or three later.

12. Swiss-miss.com

If you’re into beautiful design, check out this long-running blog by Tina Roth Eisenberg. Always a visual treat.

All Klout and no diversion makes Jack the Social Networker a dull boy. These are some of my go-to sites – what are your favorites? Please share in the comments!

Featured image courtesy of Gertrud K. licensed via creative commons.

Steve Woodruff

http://stevewoodruff.com

Steve Woodruff is the Connection Agent. An entrepreneur and marketer, he specializes in building opportunity networks that bring together trusted people and businesses through a win-win referral model. He also serves as a "brand therapist" for those seeking to understand their professional identity and message. Steve is very active on social networks, and is also the co-founder of Leadership Chat (Tuesday nights on Twitter).