7-research-tools-to-answer-questions-like

Is the domain freehatsforcats.com available?

(a: not for long!)

If you’re looking to see if a particular domain is available you can try using domainr. It’s a slick way to look up a domain’s availability. It also gives you some useful information like who owns the domain if its not available and some alternative spellings. freehatsforcats anyone?

Who is this person “haji@bottega8.com” cold emailing me?

(a: its me)

Rapportive is a gmail plugin that pulls a person’s linkedin profile and places it right next to the email they sent you. It’s great to have a person’s face and professional history immediately available instead of having to google search them later. There is also a cool hack to find someone’s email address using rapportive.

Is there a product where I can print my face on wrapping paper?

(a: of course)

Sometimes you think “I wonder if there is a product for that?” and often time there is. ProductHunt is a website that shows you new products, everyday. It has a voting system, where the most popular products are pushed to the top of the list for that particular day. It’s a great place to see new interesting products and realize that your new startup idea has probably already been done.

What technologies is buzzfeed.com using?

(a: aws, sendgrid, prototype, etc)

Built With is a cool tool that analyzes a particular website and tells you what technologies it was built with. It also has aggregate and trend information on different technologies used throughout the web. For us, it’s nice to see what technologies a company is using to help determine if they would be a good fit as a client.

Is the screenname ‘momoneymoproblems’ taken on Facebook?

(a: yes 🙁 )

Its pretty easy to check if a screen name is taken on a single website but namechk allows you to check the availability of
a screen name across over a 100 different social networks. This will help you keep your online brand consistent across the social web. For some of the less popular sites, namechk isn’t 100% accurate so YMMV.

Is angular.js more popular than ember.js?

(a: well it’s searched more!)

Google Trend allows you to check the search trends of particular keywords and compare their search volumes to other keywords. This can give you a general idea of how popular one topic is compared to another, but it’s not without its faults. For example, you might have to try a couple different iterations of a particular term like trying all iterations of angularjs and emberjs, to get a better idea of relative search volumes.

Did YO really raise 1 million dollars?

(a: Nope. they raised $1.5M)

To find information on random startups and tech companies, CrunchBase is an invaluable resource. It has basic company information, key people, how much money they’ve raise, and a host of other information. You can use it for finding your next potential employer or just gawk at how much money certain companies have raise.

That’s it from us! What are some research tools you use?