Written by Christian Rudder

What is it that makes a culture unique? How are whites, blacks, Asians, or whoever different from everybody else? What tastes, interests, and concepts define an ethnic group? And is there any way to make fun of other races in public and get away with it?

These are big questions, and here’s how we answered them.

We selected 526,000 OkCupid users at random and divided them into groups by their (self-stated) race. We then took all these people’s profile essays (280 million words in total!) and isolated the words and phrases that made each racial group’s essays statistically distinct from the others’.

For instance, it turns out that all kinds of people list sushi as one of their favorite foods. But Asians are the only group who also list sashimi; it’s a racial outlier. Similarly, as we shall see, black people are 20 times more likely than everyone else to mention soul food, whereas no foods are distinct for white people, unless you count diet coke.

Using this kind of analysis, we were able find the interests, hobbies, tastes, and self-descriptions that are specially important to each racial group, as determined by the words of the group itself. The information in this article is not our opinion. It’s data, aggregated from the essays of half a million real people.

So here’s the real stuff white people like.

Click on the icons to toggle between men/women.

In general, I won’t comment too much on these lists, because the whole point of this piece is to let the groups speak for themselves, but I have to say that the mind of the white man is the world’s greatest sausagefest. Unless you’re counting Queens of the Stone Age, there is not even one vaguely feminine thing on his list, and as far as broad categories go we have: sweaty guitar rock, bro-on-bro comedies, things with engines, and dystopias.

As for the interests of white women, you have romance novels, some country music, and a broad selection of Good Housekeeping type stuff. It’s also amazing the extent to which their list shows a pastoral or rural self-mythology: bonfires, boating, horseback riding, thunderstorms. I remind you that OkCupid’s user base is almost all in large cities, where to one degree or another, if you find yourself doing much of any of these things, civilization has come to an end.

If I had to choose over-arching themes for white people’s lists, for men, I’d go with “frat house” and for women, “escapism.” Whether one begot the other is a question I’ll leave to the reader.

Stuff black people like.

Hopefully it’s been obvious that the font-size of a phrase indicates the relative frequency with which it appears. So, toggling between black men and black women above, you can see that while soul food is important to both, but it’s really, really important to the women. In fact, soul food and black women is the single strongest phrase/group pair we found.

The above lists also make it clear that, regardless of whether Jesus himself was black, his most vocal followers definitely are. Religious expressions weren’t among the top phrases for any of the other races, but they’re all over the place for black men and (especially) black women, for whom 13 of the top 50 phrases are religious. Black people are more than twice as likely than average to mention their faith in their profiles.

Finally, it’s worth noting that of the four lists we’ve seen so far, black women’s is the only one to explicitly include someone of another race: Justin Timberlake.

Double finally, how bold is it that I am cool is the second most typical phrase for black men?

OkTrends Racial Stereotype #1

In the course of researching this article and, in particular, comparing white guys to black guys, a handy shortcut occurred to me:

If you’re trying to figure out if white dudes like something, put fucking in the middle, and say it out loud. If it sounds totally badass, white dudes probably love it. Let’s see this principle in practice:

Stuff Latinos like.

Music and dancing—merengue, bachata, reggaeton, salsa—are obviously very important to Latinos of both genders. The men have two other fascinating things going on: an interest in telling you about their sense of humor (i’m a funny guy, very funny, outgoing and funny, etc.) and an interest in industrial strength ass-kicking (mma, ufc, boxing, marines, etc.) Basically, if a Latin dude tells you a joke, you should laugh.

OkTrends Racial Stereotype #2

El chiste de knock-knock:

Latinas’ interests are fairly typical for a dating site: you got friends, career, education, movies, music, a few physical details, and, oh yeah…morbid fear. We dug further into I’m terrified of (on their list at #42) and found which words typically came next. It’s mostly insects and “the dark”, though one expert tautologist is “terrified of being scared” and another woman is “terrified of Martians.”

I feel obligated to state, on behalf of white men everywhere: That woman should get a grip. Martians are nothing compared to the Sardaukar.

Stuff Asians like.

As you can see, both Asian men and women choose I’m simple as their go-to self-description. Contrast this to black men’s I am cool and Latinos’ I’m a funny guy. It’s also interesting that Asian men very often mention their specific heritage (taiwan, korea, singapore, vietnam, china) while Asian women don’t.

OkTrends Racial Stereotype #3

Combing through these lists, you can see the different ways women use cosmetics:

• White women show off their eyes (mascara is #5 on their list).
• Black women show off their lips (lip gloss, #7).
• Latinas show off both (mascara, #18 / lip gloss, #22).
• Asian women, however, show off their practicality (lip balm, #48).

. . .

So far, I’ve gone through racial groups in order of their prominence on OkCupid. For brevity (I know this is the internet), I’ll present the remaining lists without foolish commentary. You can click any of the links to reveal them inline.

Stuff Indians like.

Stuff Middle Easterners like.

Stuff Pacific Islanders like.

Sidenote: reading level

Since we were parsing all this text anyway, we thought it would be cool to do some basic reading-level analysis on what people had written about themselves. We used the Coleman-Liau Index, and when we partitioned the essays by the race of the writers, we found this:

Before anyone gets too charged-up about this, we also ran reading level by religion and found this:

Is there a Comic Sans version of the Bible? There really should be. We subdivided this chart further, by how serious each person was about their beliefs:

Note that for each of the faith-based belief systems I’ve listed, the people who are the least serious about them write at the highest level. On the other hand, the people who are most serious about not having faith (i.e. the “very serious” agnostics and atheists) score higher than any religious groups.

. . .

We’ll be revisiting race later this month, with a statistical investigation of interracial dating, and we’re almost finished with the article on (bi-)sexuality we promised last time. Thanks for reading, everyone.

Till next time,

Christian

Max Shron and Aditya Mukerjee contributed additional research to this post.

Bonus: I miss you.

Bonus: What I do in School

Written by Dan Martell

In the past ten years, the Internet has changed so drastically – so completely – that it’s hard to remember what a vastly different place it was in the 1990’s. The web was new and exciting back then, and everyone from businessmen to high-school tinkerers were compelled to put websites together and become a part of this growing trend. Not surprisingly, the designs they produced were brutally bad by today’s standards, yet despite graphical and technical changes in web design, there are still some businesses operating from remarkably outdated pages. These are sites that time forgot, and as the Internet speeds past them, they stand as a testament to a strange world not-so-long ago – the Internet of the 1990’s.

IdeaAction Media Productions

(source)

In 1999, this all-flash design would have been top notch, but today it just looks painfully dated. Though IdeaAction appears to have something to do with advertising, it is hard to tell exactly what because their descriptive paragraphs fly on and off screen too fast to read. Topping it all off, the entire video loops over mere seconds after their contact information is displayed, forcing anyone who might want to give them a call to watch the terrible production over and over again.

ABBC Breeders

(source)

Complete with Pink Floyd midi music playing in the background, the American Beauty Border Collies Breeders website is like taking a time machine back to the Internet of 1998. Simply viewing the tasteless layout and tacky animated GIF images that litter the page will make you remember a time when GeoCities and AngelFire were the primary website building utilities, and everyone who knew how to use copy and paste commands could create a homepage. The only essential 90’s web artifact missing from ABBC Breeders is some old fashioned flaming text.

Utah Ski Rentals

(source)

Animated backgrounds were a big part of the Internet in the 1990’s. Once designers realized they didn’t need to stick to the solid color page that worked so well for so long, it seemed that readability began taking a back-seat to animation and pizzaz. Soon, every website on the net started converting to annoying graphic backgrounds that made reading the actual text on the page a strenuous and tiresome activity. Utah Ski Rentals is unable to move on from this Internet dark age, still boasting a snowing background, randomly placed buttons, and scrolling text banners.

Dokimos

(source)

Speaking of horrendously annoying backgrounds, Dokimos takes the cake as the most unbearable. Featuring a scrolling rainbow of bright colors behind biblical scripture, the religious-themed website is impossible to look at for more than several seconds without being driven away, or even worse, going into an epileptic fit. Further dating the website to the 90’s is the presence of a guestbook, one of the oldest forms of commenting a web page. Not surprisingly, the first comment in the guestbook is from 1999.

Arngren

(source)

Arngren is a gadget sales site with an infuriatingly confusing layout. Looking like something that was thrown together in Microsoft Frontpage ‘98, the site scatters disconnected technology items for sale all across its main page with utter disregard to organization or ease of use. Look closely at the top of the page and you’ll see another component of every website to exist in 1990s, the long retired visual hit counter.

Cobra Strike Trading Solutions

(source)

CobraStrike is an awfully fierce name for such a timid website. Looking more like a pretty Microsoft Word document than a complete site, the trading firm says little about what it does, choosing instead to boast about profits and put a big, clip-art like picture of a cobra up for all to see. Signs of 90’s influence include the lifeless solid background color, the pasted in images that clash with the page, and the single page layout.

Party Tent City

(source)

Here’s a website that would have shamed even Expages designers in the 90’s. Massive text runs into small text, some of it is italicized, some of it is highlighted, and images and videos are randomly pasted in without formatting. The lack of any sort of navigation makes the whole site look like something a middle school web-hobbyist in 98 might have come up with.

DP Graph

(source)

At least the designers at DP Graph were kind enough to place their text inside of a white box and not directly on top of their multi-colored spinning background so that we don’t have to squint and highlight to read it. Still – it’s 2010, can’t we leave the tiled animated background in the 90’s along with the words “phat” and “da bomb?” The bottom of the page says that it was created in 1997, and we can safely assume it hasn’t been touched since.

Smith and Goldsmith Inc

(source)

Still operating off the Homestead web design and hosting suite (another online design suite popular in the late 90’s), Smith and Goldsmith Inc round out our list with a design that features all the tells of a true 90’s page. First of all, the background is a tacky, tiled graphic – a common choice of amateur designers from the 90’s. Scrolling text banners interrupt the flow of the page to scream messages at you, text flows into images, images flow into images, and a visual hit counter proudly boasts the number of visitors. Last but not least, the site makes use of the ultra-popular side button navigation, a fad not seen on the web past the early 2000’s.

Thumbnail image source is here

Bonus:  Oh god, twitter.

Written by furiousfanboys

Time travel is by far one of the most popular subjects in science fiction and has almost always been found in the genre in books, movies, and TV shows. Below we’ve chosen the ten best movies or shows that used time travel as their basis.

Back to the Future

The Back to the Future trilogy is one of the most popular scifi series ever and for good reason. It combined time travel and science fiction with comedy and produced three of the most entertaining movies ever made. This year the first movie celebrates its 25th anniversary.

Quantum Leap

Watching Quantum Leap you’re struck by how they just don’t make shows like it anymore. Its strong moral tone of Sam leaping through time to fix wrongs hits a depth of science fiction storytelling not seen since the original Twilight Zone or Star Trek in the 60s. It’s a show that ended way to soon and should have ended better than it did.

Frequency

If you’ve ever seen Frequency, you owe yourself to check it out. Part Back to the Future, part Field of Dreams; it’s a unique and really good time travel story where a son is able to talk to his dead father over a radio and change the course of his own history.

Time After Time

One of the best time travel movies ever, and a very strong inspiration for Spielberg and Zemeckis when making Back to the Future. You’ll even see some things that Back to the Future lifted directly from the movie (compare H.G. Wells to Doc Brown when they each try to open their time machine). In the movie H.G. Wells chases Jack the Ripper to modern day San Francisco.

The Time Machine (1960)

Forget the bad remake. The 1960 George Pal Time Machine is the best. You get creepy Morlocks here. No super intelligent talking ones.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure

Vastly superior to its sequel, the original Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure has become something of a cult classic over the years. Despite Keanu being a big star now, we’d kill to see a third movie more along the lines of the first. SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

The most fun of all Trek films, by far. It’s a lighthearted romp after the serious life and death stories the previous movies dealt with. The mission to bring George and Gracie back to the 23rd Century is a classic scifi story that appeals to more than just Trek fans. “Hello, computer…”

Primer

You may not have seen Primer, but it’s worth tracking down. It was an extremely low budget time travel movie, with some unique ideas on how time travel could work.

Lost

Despite your feelings on how it ended, Lost was one of the better shows to deal with time travel. Most of the fourth and fifth seasons dealt with that as one of the major elements of the story.

Doctor Who

You can’t talk about time travel in scifi without mentioning the ol’ Time Lord himself.

Bonus: In all the years… why didn’t I think of this sooner?

The BlackBerry brand has been synonymous with smartphones for close to a decade now. But while millions of people around the world own, use and are maybe even addicted to the devices, only a select few are familiar with the history of the BlackBerry and Research In Motion, or RIM, the company that actually makes the devices. This infographic put together by the team at Cell Phones.Org, details much of the BlackBerry’s and RIM’s history right up to the release of the new Blackberry Torch 9800, which just hit the scene a couple of weeks ago. Interesting stuff, but we’d hazard a guess that more than 53% of BlackBerry users check their phones while on the throne. And for everyone’s sake, the 37% of you checking in while driving—put the darn phone down!

Via: Cell Phones

Bonus: One childs most exciting day

Written by mocha dad

Photo by: Photofinish2009 via Flickr

Men were made to be bold, strong, leaders. However, our society has attempted to repress these traits. If you look at the way men (especially dads) are portrayed on TV, you’d think we were all a bunch of irresponsible, befuddled, nincompoops, who can only function with the help of a “smart” female partner, friend, or spouse.

Consequently, many boys are confused and have no idea what it takes to be a real man. They seek inappropriate role models and emulate the bad behavior that they see on a regular basis.

It is our duty as men, fathers, and responsible citizens to counter these negative images and raise a new generation of men who are respectful, loving, and willing to contribute to society in a positive way.

If we are to achieve this goal, we must start with improving ourselves. I started my journey towards self-improvement after my daughter’s birth. The greatest compliment that a father can get from his daughter is “I want to marry someone just like you.” That kind of pressure forces you to examine your life and look for ways to improve.

Over the years, I’ve discovered seven traits that real men possess:

1. Integrity – Integrity is more than being honest. It’s a lifestyle set on striving towards moral excellence. Real men say what they mean and mean what they say. They are the same person whether or not others are watching. They are trustworthy, dependable, and unwavering.
2. Compassion – Compassion is sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it. In other words, you feel compelled to help someone who is hurting. Men aren’t often viewed as being compassionate, but it is a trait that helps us to become more connected to the people around us. Real men turn their compassion into service and work to make the world a better place.
3. Confidence – Real men are confident. Many people confuse confidence with arrogance and self-centeredness. Real men know the difference. Confidence is about being self-assured and self-aware. Confident men have faith in their abilities and knowledge. They don’t need to tear others down in order to build themselves up. They earn people’s trust with their radiant, inner strength. When a they walk into the room, everyone takes notice.
4. Self-control – Hardly a day goes by without a news report about some high-profile man who has been destroyed by sex, money, and/or drugs. Too many men lack self-control, but it is the foundation of a virtuous life. Self-control starts with focus and ridding yourself of distractions. Doing this isn’t easy because temptations lurk around every corner. Real men are able to tame their desires and channel that energy into positive pursuits.
5. Perseverance – Perseverance is the product of self-control. It is courageous resistance against difficult circumstances. Perseverance is only developed through trials. Real men endure the trials and emerge stronger. They never give up.
6. Bravery – Bravery is the courage to do what is right regardless of the circumstances. Nothing is ever accomplished with an attitude of passivity. Real men stand up in the face of adversity.
7. Humility – Today’s breed of young men loves to let everyone know how much swagger they have. They thump their chests and proclaim to the world, “I’m a Big Deal. Look at me!” Real men understand the value of being humble and letting someone else’s light shine. They realize that humility is more endearing than self-importance. Humility indicates that you are ridding yourself of the poison of self-centeredness. Besides, humility softens the blow when someone knocks you off your pedestal.

Acquiring all of these traits takes time and dedication. However, our society would benefit greatly if all men strove to possess them.

Stay Strong,

Question: In your opnion, what traits should a real man possess?

Bonus: so true…..

Written by Phil Plait

”

Phil Plait is an astronomer and major sci-fi geek. He writes the Bad Astronomy Blog for Discover Magazine and is also the host of the Discovery Channel’s science show “Phil Plait’s Bad Universe.” You can follow him on Twitter at @BadAstronomer.

My old friends know better than to go see movies with me. Sure, I always yell at the screen when a movie spaceship make a “whooshing” noise when it flies past, but at least I don’t throw popcorn: At a prorated 10 cents or so per kernel, it’s simply not cost-effective. But at my best I still mutter under my breath, and sometimes even take notes for my blog.

Such is the life of an evil-hearted nerd scientist critic of science fiction movies.

Still, it’s not all bad. As rare as good stuff in movies can be, maybe it’s time to recognize it. I love a challenge, so let’s take a look: What movies got their science right?

(insert cricket noise)

No, seriously, a lot of movies really do. Well, some do. OK, a few do. Let’s start off with an easy one, like…

2001: A Space Odyssey

Ask any astronomer what movie comes closest to getting it all right, and they won’t hesitate: 2001. The obvious anachronism may make this one a teensy bit harder — Pan Am went out of business decades before the titular date, and the Space Station is hardly a giant spinning wheel in orbit — but a lot of the actual science is good.

There’s no sound in space, for example. Without air, there’s nothing to transmit the sound waves, and the movie shows space as deadly silent.

A classic scene has astronaut Frank Poole jogging around the circular centrifuge, and that’s on the money. Without gravity astronauts have all sorts of trouble, including serious health issues, such as muscle and permanent bone density loss. A spinning centrifuge would simulate gravity and mitigate a lot of those issues.

My favorite bit in the movie is that lack of stars in the exterior shots. If you were out in space and looking at a bright object like a sunlit spaceship, your eyes would adapt to that brightness level. Stars are pretty faint, and would be very hard to see!

And here’s one you might not have thought of (and I’ll risk geek blasphemy for saying it): Interplanetary travel is boring. A trip even to the moon takes three days. Mars is six months, and Jupiter would take years. Space is big and empty, so for 99 percent of the time there would be nothing to do. 2001 shows that beautifully by being boring. I mean, by showing that boredom!

Deep Impact

In 1998, two blockbusters came out about impacts: Armageddon, and Deep Impact. Armageddon was one of the worst movies in the history of humanity, if the not the universe in its entirety, so I’ll leave it alone (it does have one thing right: It’s about asteroids, and asteroids exist. Other than that …).

Deep Impact, on the other hand, got a lot right. The comet was discovered by an amateur astronomer (which was still common in the ’90s, though less now, with robotic surveys scanning the heavens much more efficiently). In the flick, a nuke only managed to split the comet into two pieces; in reality that’s likely to be what would happen to a fragile comet nucleus. The impact scene (damn! I forgot to say “spoiler alert!”) is wonderfully accurate, with the actual moment of collision and subsequent tsunami beautifully detailed and terrifying. Even the scenes filmed at the comet itself were good; the lack of gravity makes it impossible to land a ship, for example, so they tether themselves to it.

It was attention to that kind of detail that made my geeky inner (OK, outer) astronomer sing.

Contact

I have my suspicions that when we make first contact with aliens, it won’t be when they land their flying saucers on the White House lawn. That whole “space is big” thing really is a problem, and it’s a whole lot worse when the distances are measured in quadrillions of miles.

In Contact we find aliens because they beam an intense radio signal to us (though points are taken off for Jodie Foster’s character using headphones; computers are a wee bit better at detection than humans). That makes sense: A radio wave is easy to send, it travels at light speed, and you can encode a lot of information into it. So right off the bat, the movie has it right.

Not only that, but it also shows astronomers as, y’know, people, instead of cardboard caricatures, as usually done. Foster’s character actually — gasp — has a sex life!

Even the depiction of faster-than-light travel is consistent and well done. But none of this is surprising: The script was penned by Carl Sagan himself, an astronomer and brilliant writer. If you haven’t seen this flick, then stop reading my dorky stuff and go get it! Also, read the book Contact. If the last page doesn’t give you chills, you’re not a bona fide nerd.

Star Trek

Yes, the 2009 Trek reboot that pissed off a bazillion fans, who were appalled that suddenly their franchise could be made appealing to a broad audience. Still, despite all the debauching of science usually performed by Trek, there was one sequence made of win: Early on, when the Kelvin is attacked, we see explosions and running crewmen and lots of yelling and screaming. Suddenly, amidst the hullabaloo, a hull breach opens up and a crewmember is blown into space. We follow her out the hole, and suddenly all the noise is cut off.

Like 2001, this is a good depiction of space. Without air, there’s no noise. And the movie wins a second kudo from me because it was used dramatically: The sudden cessation of noise punctuates that death scene for the poor, unnamed crewperson, making it that much more chilling. Of course, that saves her from the awful science later in the movie as Vulcan collapses into a black hole (and don’t even get me started on “red matter”).

The Fountain

This wasn’t a blockbuster, but it was still a beautifully told tale of love, life, death and rebirth. I won’t spoil it for you, but I will say that this is, to my knowledge, the only movie that has ever used supernovae correctly.

When a massive star explodes at the end of its life, all the heavy elements it’s created (like iron, calcium and so on) are blown out into space, where they can merge with gas clouds. These clouds then collapse to form other stars, planets … and you. The iron in your blood and the calcium in your bones were literally forged in the hearts of ancient supernovae. When a star dies, it gives life to others … and that theme is used perfectly in the movie. It’s a metaphor for rebirth, but it’s also used in that way by the movie quite literally. Astrophysics as poetry! Awesome.

I could go on and on, but after this it’s a state of diminishing returns. I know there’s more good stuff out there on display in small doses in lots of movies. And I just bet you have more examples in your own movie collection. So tell me: What flicks do you hold up as a shining example of Science and Reality?

Bonus: No, it’s totally cool. See…

Collected by DzineBlog

If you are searching for free stock photo databases, there are quite a few sites on the web that do that, and even at high quality: there are sites that are made by artists or designers for other artists and promote sharing their creations, there are also others which have a double policy, offering both photos for sale and for free, in distinct sections, and there are also sites which offer exposure to new talented photographers who are willing to collaborate.

In any case, there are huge resources of free stock photos on the internet and this article means to help you get to some of the best sources available online at the moment.

So check them out- among all these links you are bound to find what you are looking for!

1. Stock Xchng – The Leading Free Stock Photography Site

A famous and very reliable free stock photo site, with a huge gallery containing over 350.000 quality stock photos by more than 30.000 photographers! You can find any picture you need: wallpapers for your desktop, illustration for your blog, pictures for website design and so on. It is also a place where you can share your photos and get exposure. It also has a forum where you exchange ideas with other photographers or artists! You have to register in order to download pictures but it is a very quick and safe procedure.

2. Dreamstime – Free Stock Images Section

Another huge stock photo database, where you can search among more than 9 million images is Dreamstime. Here the policy is different, as the site offers photos both free and for sale – in different packages. You have several options: you can take photos from the free section just by registering or you can buy high-resolution stock images with very low prices. If you are a photographer you can sell your stock images and get 30-60% from each sale you make.

3. Stockvault.Net Free Stock Photos And Free Images

Here you can download free stock images without any registration necessary. They have a very big collection of high quality stock photos both free and for sale, in separate sections again.

4. PhotoXpress – Royalty Free Subscription Images and Pictures

It’s a site with a huge collection of stock photos, either free or for sale. You can download for free 1 photo per day if you sign up, 5 photos per day if you join PhotoXpress on Facebook and 10 photos per day if you offer your personal information. It could be a continuing resource if you agree to these terms!

5. Everystockphoto – Free Stock Photos From Different Sites

This site checks out at the same time several other free stock photo sites and offers you the results for your search coming from all of them combined. It is a huge resource and you will save a lot of time by using it!

6. Free Stock Photos Bank

Similar to Stock Xchng, here graphic designers can choose from a huge collection of high quality photos which are completely free. No registration needed! Just hit download and you’ll get the high resolution image that you need!

7. Free Digital Photos – Free Stock Photos

In this case there is a different policy: you can download for free the pictures from the huge stock photo collection available here, at a medium resolution, on the condition that you promote them on your site (by providing a link to the source of the picture you choose to publish) It seems like a fair trade to me! If you want a very high resolution you can buy them at a very affordable price.

8. Morguefile – Free Photos For Creatives By Creatives

It is a site where creatives can share and exchange their work. You can easily download any picture you wish without any authentification needed. If you wish, you can add to the collection of photos as well! They are generally photos provided by very talented photographers!

9. 5000 Free Stock Photos

Here you can choose from a collection of 5000 free stock photos and 8000 cliparts that are completely free to download without registration. It’s quick and simple!

10. Unprofound – A Public Domain Stock Photo Collaboration

This site was created by a graphic designer and other collaborating creatives who were bothered by the fact that it was very difficult to find quality, free to use photos on the internet for using in their graphic creations. So they took their cameras and made their own high quality collection of photos and then they generously decided to offer it for free to any other designer out there who might happen to need it. If you wish, you can make a donation to the site – it would be a nice way of saying thanks!

11. Freerangestock – Totally Free Stock Photography And Textures!

It is another site that has a huge collection of high quality stock photos. Here you just need to sign up, and then you can download as many pictures as you want, at a very high resolution. If you wish, you can contribute with your own photos as well!

12. Lomography – Free Photos

In this case, you will find a site that specializes in art photography, with a retro look, and using old cameras that give a special color effect to all the pictures. You can search the database and you’ll also get information about the type of camera or film that was used! Unfortunately, the pictures are not at a very high resolution, but you can contact the artist that created them and discuss with him/her if you need a high quality picture. Of course, you are free to join the club too, if you are fond of creating such pictures and if you wish, you can even order yourself a very good old camera from the site!

13. Imagebase – Free Images Public Domain

It is a site with a very big collection of free downloadable pictures sorted on different sections.(No registration is needed).They are high quality pictures created by a graphic designer who has traveled a lot with his camera by his side. You can check his portfolio too.

14. PixelPerfect – Free Stock Photos Section

This is a site where you ca download photos and digital art for free with no registration needed. The site also promotes the creators of the photos and offers you the possibility to communicate with them, if you wish, or comment on their art.

15. Cepolina Photos – Free Photo

On this site you will find a wonderful collection of high resolution pictures on nature, geography and traveling mostly, but not only. Again, no registration needed but you should credit the site on your website.

16. PhotoRack – Stock Photos and Free Images

Another site with a very big collection of pictures that you can download for free without any registration. The images are very well structured on subjects so it’s easy to find what you need.

17. Abstract Influence – Image Portal

A huge collection of photos available for download for free- at medium and high resolution! Quick and easy: no registration necessary!

18. FreeMediaGoo – Free Stock Photos, Background and Web Images

Here you will find not only free stock photos but also free audio or free flash but unfortunately you don’t have a big range of choice. You could give it a try, though.

19. FreePixels – Free Stock Photos

This is a collection of 4000 stock photos at high resolution and very high quality that you can download for free and without login.

20. ImageAfter – 25k+ Free Textures And Images

You’re completely free to use the 25 000 stock photos and textures available on this site for personal or commercial use. No identification needed.

21. FreeImages – Free Stock Photos

Another collection of free stock photos of medium or high resolution that you can download as long as you provide a link to the site when you use them.

22. InterArtCenter – Free Clip Art Gallery and Images

A special feature of this site is that beside high quality stock photos it also has 3D cliparts, 3D wallpapers, 3Dmodels, and Flash animations to download for free. No registration is needed again!

23. Openphoto – More Than 14K Images

A site with a huge collection of 15 000 free stock photos

24. Photorogue – Original Photos by Request

This is a site based on a very creative idea- but only at its beginning at the moment. We’ll mention it for the cool idea: the creators of of the site considered the situation when a graphic designer searches desperately for a certain picture and doesn’t manage to find it and they thought about reversing the process. This time it is the designer who requests the exact picture that he/she needs and a volunteer photographer will try to obtain it. After that, the picture will be available for everyone to see and download for free.

25. Woophy – Free Photos

A site with a huge collection of high quality stock photos that also shows you the place on the world map where the picture was taken! You are free to download them for personal use but they are copyrighted by photographer and cannot be used for commercial purposes unless he/she agrees with that.

Written by Amy Porterfield

Does your business have a Facebook page? Have you ever wondered what successful Facebook page owners are doing right? Well, look no further.

This article examines 10 of the top Facebook pages from brands you’ll likely recognize. Regardless of the size of your business, you’ll discover great ideas that will help you take your Facebook experience to the next level.

Each of these pages has incorporated unique features that have attracted hundreds of thousands (sometimes millions!) of fans and attracted the notice of major media publications. That’s a pretty big feat, considering there are thousands of new pages popping up on Facebook daily!

There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Instead, check out what others are doing and tweak these strategies to make them your own!

#1: Red Bull

The team behind the Red Bull page is extremely in tune with their target audience. This is evidenced in their custom apps and unique content throughout their page.

Red Bull knows what their audience will respond to best and they deliver it. For example, they’ve created a series of online games for their fans, aptly called the “Procrastination Station.” The games are geared toward sports and high-impact competitions.

In addition, Red Bull created a web TV program that’s highlighted on their Facebook page. There are multiple segments, many spotlighting the lives of their sponsored athletes. Not only is the web TV show a great way to align with celebrity athletes, but it is also a way to incorporate video into the page, thereby giving the audience another way to interact.

Another smart feature of Red Bull’s page is their welcome tab. When a non-fan lands on their page, he or she sees the image below. Red Bull creatively encourages fans to “Like” their page with an attention-grabbing image. Also, they only put one thing on their welcome tab, making it very clear what they want to happen. When you add too much to your welcome tab, your fans will get confused and likely not take any action. Less is more. Stick to one call to action.

Tip: One area you might want to consider spending a little money on is creative design for your page. Design, when done right, makes a great first impression for non-fans. Also, when you design your Facebook page, pay close attention to your call to action, specifically for the “Like” button. What can you do to grab the attention of your new viewer and encourage him or her to click on your “Like” button quickly? Red Bull’s creative design on their welcome tab does just that!

#2: Burt’s Bees

One of the best features on the Burt’s Bees page is their use of photos and video. They use the photos and videos to give a behind-the-scenes view of their company and products.

In the image below, notice how Burt’s Bees not only mentions the type of ingredients used, but they also suggest their ingredients are safe and they welcome all visitors into their lab. This is a great example of a way to promote your company and products, while adding value in the form of interesting details.

Tip: We all have something unique about our products or services and Facebook is one of the best places to highlight this. How can you incorporate video or images to help you stand out from your competition?

#3: Uno Chicago Grill

Uno Chicago Grill has taken full advantage of the Facebook app FBML to highlight their menu options in an extremely appealing way. They have many tabs dedicated to specific areas of their menu and use imagery to entice their fans. In addition, on their welcome tab they link to the most important areas of their website, including locations and online ordering options. When non-fans come to their page for the first time, they get an instant snapshot of Uno’s offerings.

In addition, Uno has incorporated a Fan of the Week contest on their Facebook page. Fans get their photo posted directly on the profile image of the restaurant’s wall.

This is great exposure for the fan, making it a fun activity to participate in.

To take it one step further, Uno does something unique with their Fan of the Week contest—they ask fans to post photos of themselves while at an Uno restaurant, thereby encouraging fans to come in and dine.

This is a great way to bring their online fans into their brick-and-mortar establishment!

Tip: If you have a brick-and-mortar establishment, think of creative ways to entice your fans to visit in person. Contests, promotions and special offers are all great ways to invite new fans to come in and check things out!

#4: LiveScribe

LiveScribe has incorporated two features into their page to help them sell more products and cut back on support calls.

First, they’ve created a savvy storefront as one of their tabs. Not only can you buy directly from the Facebook page, but you can also tweet about their products and post about them on your Facebook wall. These two options help create greater exposure for LiveScribe’s products. When your friends see that you’re posting about a new product, it’s natural for them to want to know more.

In addition, LiveScribe has incorporated a support desk directly into their Facebook page. As you can see below, you can ask a question, share an idea, report a problem or even give praise directly from their Facebook page. What’s even more important is that others can see these posts. Fans and potential buyers can then go to this tab to get answers or see what others are saying about the products.

It’s another great way to educate fans about your products and services. In addition, this tool can cut down service calls when executed correctly, saving your company time and money.

Tip: If you’re providing a product or service, consider incorporating a support feature to your page. It’s common for customers to use social media sites to post questions or complaints. If you provide a designated place for support, you’re likely to keep your customers happy and turn them into repeat buyers!

#5: Toy Story 3

Toy Story 3 has done an exceptional job of making their page both fun and functional. The fun factor is expressed in their new application, Toy Creator, where you can turn yourself into an animated toy. Both kids and adults can get in on the action and then share their new creation on their Facebook wall (yet another viral exposure opportunity!).

To make their page functional, they’ve built a tab where you can purchase movie tickets without ever leaving Facebook. This makes ticket buying easy and fast for their fans.

Tip: Keep your fans inside Facebook as much as possible. Bring your content, unique experiences and buying opportunities to them instead of making fans leave the site to interact with your business. Your chances for greater interactions and a bigger return on investment will dramatically increase the longer you keep them on your page.

#6: Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola has secured their spot at the top of many best-of-the-best Facebook page lists due to their innovative promotions and fun, interactive features.

Their latest promotion is the Summer Snapshot contest, where they encourage their fans to take photos with the summer Coca-Cola cans. Not only does this get fans involved with their page, but the contest also incorporates photos of their products with fans.

Photos are viewed more than anything else on Facebook. They go viral quickly because when a fan posts a photo, that photo is then sent out to the news feeds of all of their friends. Hundreds of thousands of potentially new fans will see these photos.

Here’s an example of a photo a fan posted for the Coca-Cola contest. Notice how others can vote on the photos? This allows everyone to get in on the fun.

Tip: When creating a contest, keep it simple. The less your fans need do to enter, the better. Make it easy, fun and make sure to incorporate a sharing component so your contest spreads virally.

#7: Oreo

Oreo does a fantastic job of creating unique experiences for their fans. Oreo knows that their cookies have been part of many people’s lives since childhood and they use this angle to create nostalgia with their fans. And it’s working for them because they have over 8 million fans to date!

One of their latest campaigns is their “Back to School Memories” campaign where they ask their fans to share their memories and photos directly on their Facebook page. By offering unique experiences like Oreo has done with their back to school campaign, brands create a connection to the fans, who become loyal followers and keep coming back for more.

Tip: You’ll get a much greater response when you ask your fans to share something about themselves. Ask them their thoughts, opinions and feedback and you’ll be pleasantly surprised how quickly they start talking!

#8: Jones Soda

Jones Soda does a great job of incorporating many different ways for their fans to interact with their page. Not everyone communicates the same way, so providing multiple options is a smart strategy.

Specifically, Jones Soda does a weekly poll directly from their welcome tab. Polls are a great way to learn more about your audience as well as a fun strategy to get them to interact with your page.

Tip: Think of different ways to get your fans to engage with you. Polls, contests, questions, iPhone apps and videos are just a few different ways to reach your fans. All fans are different; make sure to provide options.

#9: The Twilight Saga

No matter if you have seen the movies or not, you can’t deny that the Twilight Saga is hot. There are two strategies they’ve launched on their Facebook page that you can model for your own page.

First, they’ve created a “Tweet Sweeps,” where they encourage fans to tweet about the movies for a chance to win movie tickets. The best strategy with this type of contest is to tell fans specifically what to tweet so there is no confusion and they can take action quickly. Check out how they’ve done this in the image below:

In addition, the Twilight Saga page has taken advantage of the “Discussion” tab where fans can post topics of discussion and all fans can join in and comment. The discussion tab creates a great sense of community and dramatically increases the engagement on the page.

Tip: To encourage more conversation among fans on your page, start a few discussion streams to get people talking. Once this takes off, your fans will continue to post discussion topics on their own and the page engagement will grow organically.

#10: Travel Channel

The Travel Channel has done something unique on their page that’s worth checking out. They’ve created a space for their fans to share how Facebook has played a part in their travel experiences. You can post your own story or just read what others have posted. It’s a creative way to get people with similar interests to engage with your page.

Tip: Facebook Stories can be incorporated on your page as well. Go here to see how it works and check out the different story themes offered.

What do you think about the above Facebook pages? Have you tried any of these techniques with success? Let us know! Please leave your comments below.

Bonus: Never give up on your dreams!

Bonus: Ever look at one of these and imagine that it’s from some anti-construction protesters?