Instagram is a hot topic at the moment. Following Facebook’s $1bn takeover, fans of photography sharing apps are increasingly keen to discover alternatives. Also, there’s been a sudden explosion of great apps that give users additional features. Looking at the results from SimilarSites.com to mind similar sites to instagr.am we found the following interesting alternatives.

Picplz.com

Very similar service to Instagram which lets you share your pictures via facebook and twitter with their app and provides a range of filters to put over the pictures which again, are not very different from Instagram. The two crucial benefits of Picplz.com are that while Instagram downgrades the resolution of your original pictures, Picplz keeps the original resolution. This makes a significant difference when viewing pictures on bigger monitors or when printed. The second advantage of Picplz.com is that unlike Instagram, they have a strong web presence from where you can review your pictures with an online album call Flipboard which groups the pictures together in a neat and exciting way.

Hipstamaticapp.com

Hipstamatic has been around since 2009 and is an extremely popular app – Apple even named it app of the year in 2010. The one big disadvantage with Hipstamatic is that you can’t edit photos that were not taken using the app. What really sets Hipstamatic apart from the myriads of lesser vintage look apps is the quality of the filters. The app has several ‘lenses’ available, each one giving a different vintage look, with some ‘films’ and ‘flashes’ also available to improve the effects. It also gives you the option to print your pictures which isn’t possible with Instagram. The app is also beautifully designed, but it does take a little bit time to get used to. The other disadvantage of Hipstamatic is that it’s not free like Instagram - the basic app costs $1.99 to download. 

Flickr.com

Although Flickr is better known as an online service to store high res pictures, Yahoo! revealed its first Android Flickr application in September 2011 which has lots of Instagram-like filters. This app features an activity stream so that you can view recent fotos from your friends in real time and browse through all their past sets and collections, as well as yours. Like with Instagram, you can also see likes, comments and in addition you can view a map to find out where the photos were taken. Like with Instagram, pictures can be shared on Facbook and Twitter. Unfortunately, the filters are not yet available on Flickr’s iOS app so not the best option for iPhone users.

Dailybooth.com

Dailybooth encourages users to have one big conversation about your life in pictures. Overall, it’s a very similar app to Instagram but like Picplz.com, Dailybooth also have a strong website to view your and your friends’ archived pictures. The main difference between them is probably their attitude - whilst Instagram users will try to find interesting things that will look pretty with a filter on, Dailybooth users make the most of their product by using it as a journal that documents their daily routines.

This is an expanding market and there are many more alternatives which you can explore by visiting SimilarSites.com to ensure you find the app that suits you better.

Super Bowl Sunday is by far the biggest sports betting day of the year. The game is live tonight in Indianapolis and you and your buddies want to bet but you are far from Las Vegas. Maybe you want to bet on the coin toss or team up and wager on the underdog. These great websites even allow you to track your winnings and losing in real time as the game progresses. Here is a list of the top 5 sports betting websites to use for tonight’s Superbowl showdown:

1. Betfair

Betfair has changed the sports betting market by offering more flexibility for bets and better pricing. Betfair  is an open market betting company and allows customers to make their own odds in order to bet against each other at equal odds. The service is great for betting small or large  amounts and is extremely easy to use. Sign up is easy and will only take a couple of minutes.

2. Oddschecker

Oddschecker is a great betting website that gives the best prices for betting. Using Oddschecker is very simple. All you have to do is select the category you want to bet in, chose a market to bet in and click on the odds you want. Sign up is quick and easy and allows you to make many bets, quickly.

3. Covers

Covers provides statistics and information for sports lovers. The site features match-up pages, a forum community, live scores and odds and detailed information on every major sport.  Covers keeps growing as the best site for easy access to sports news and facts and has over 45 million hits a year. Cover was rated the “#1 Sports Betting Industry Site” by many on the web.

4. Sportsbook

Sportsbook is a great website for betting on the Superbowl. The site features easy deposits, free payouts, bonuses and tips, stats and betting trends. Sportsbook has its own section just for the Superbowl and allows you to bet on the Superbowl game spread, game total, money line and more than 350 props.

5. Sportbet

Sportbet is very easy to use and is quick to sign up with. The site offers very good odds and extremely helpful customer service. In addition, the site offers reliable payouts and secure transactions. For football betting, the most popular bet will show on the point spread. The team with the highest score after all of the points are counted is the winner.

Visit SimilarSites to see the full list of the best sports betting sites on the web. Let us know if there are any other sports betting websites you will be using today on Super Bowl Sunday. Good luck!

 As many of you will already be aware and for those of you who aren’t, Google recently purchased the online photo-editing website Picnik, and it will be fully shut down over the next few weeks. In response to the huge uproar and great deal of requests for a replacement to Picnik here is a list of 10 sits like Picnik.

1.Photoshop Express
Adobe’s Photoshop Express has some more advanced features such as sharpen, fill like and exposure, as well as all the basic editing tools you would expect from Adobe like resize, crop, red-eye etc. There are some more interesting effects available and an entire section on “decorating” your photo. Although it lacks the seasonal effects offered by Picnik, you can add text bubbles, text and even apply frames. Once you’re done with the cropping and editing you can share the completed photos to Facebook, Picasa, Photoshop.com, Flickr or Photobucket, or go old school and save them on your computer.

2. Pixlr Express

Pixlr Express, by Autodesk is more like the desktop version of Photoshop and is the basic version of the Pixlr Editor offered for free. Although Pixlr Express sticks to the basics there are a decent amount of overlays, borders and fun effect to keep you busy for quite a while. Pixlr Express doesn’t have the ability to share the final edits with photo or social-media networks, but you can of course save them on your computer and upload them yourself.

3.FotoFlexer

FotoFlexer is probably the closest thing to Picnik on our list for fun editing options offered and ease of use. Fotoflexr comes with a great array of effects and decorations as well as the basic editing options you would expect. Photos can be uploaded to Photobucket, Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, Smugmug, Flotoflexr and Myspace as well as being saved on your computer as JPEG and PNG file formats.

4. Splashup

Formerly Fauxto, Splashup is a powerful photo-editing tool and manager. It has all the basic editing tools one would expect for the novices out there and more advanced tools for professional users. Its very easy to use and the ability to edit multiple photos in real-time is a huge plus. Splashup has the ability to work in all browsers and has its own file format for works in progress. Once completed photos can both be saved locally or uploaded to a multitude of photo and social-media sites.

5. Phixr

Phixr is one of the most useful html based image editors we cover here. It doesn’t require Adobe Flash, which means less crashing and battery use and run directly on your browser. Due to this and like most other non-flash based options, Phixr is unable to work with layers and is not the user-friendliest option for those who require more advanced fine-tuning. It is however great for the basic user and offers simple straightforward photo editing and adjustment features, filters decorations and a huge variety of effects. Phixr also has seamless integration with many photo and social networking sites.

6. Pixenate

Pixenate is a powerful photo-editing tool that allows the user to purchase custom photoproducts. It is a self-hosted option meaning the software can be installed on your own webserver. Pixeante is very customizable to suit the needs of the individual or if you want it running on your site to suit your site’s identity. Pixenate comes with a fully documented very powerful API so you can also change it’s behaviour if needs be. There are themes and skins provided so you can change the look of Pixenate and like the previous tools there are no add-ons or downloads required.

7. Flauntr

Flauntr provides users with a variety of photo editing tools that allow them to customize their pictures. The website offer various languages including German, English, French and Spanish as well as country specific websites for each language. Flauntr offers its users one-click effects and unique frames than can be placed on top of photographs. In addition to this, coloration can also be edited along with other special effects and fonts. Moreover the unique ability to apply the styles of various world famous paintings to your photographs given by the Flauntr Profilr is really great. The application integrates with Facebook, My Space, iGoogle, Live Journal, WordPress, Windows Live Spaces, Picasa, Hi 5, Orkut and Flickr.

8. Picture2Life  

Picture2Life does exactly what it says and has the ability to bring your pictures to life with a very easy-to-use simple online photo editor that works seamlessly with photos you already have online, including a long list of photo hosting, photo sharing, blogging and social networking sites. The latest version includes new 1-click animations and Picture2Life makes it very easy to apply your favourite effects and animations.

9. piZap

Like most online image editing programs reviewed on this site, piZap, too, has its strengths, functions and potential niche amongst digital photo hobbyists, photo sharing site users and social networkers. That strength is apparent from the homepage, namely the innovative, modern embellishments, stickers and add-ons that range from simple holiday and other themes to contemporary pop culture and politics. piZap might not be the go-to online image editing program for everyday users, but when it comes to humorous collages and contemporary, relevant stickers, piZap is in a class of its own.

10. SnipShot

SnipShot is an online multitasking photo editor for the amateur, hobbyist and professional alike. The SnipShot picture editing web 2.0 app gives unpaid photographers all the tools they need to bring their images to life without any difficult downloads or add-on packages. Snipshot allows users to edit uncooked files and add special effects to photos of virtually any size. Snipshot’s online image editor tool sports an assortment of photo editing features that allow the adjusting of numerous aspects of your pictures. With SnipShot you can resize, crop, rotate, and add effects and improve the superiority of photographs. Snipshot allows users do away with opening a split graphics editing program for simple edits. There five functions can be performed once an image has been imported. User can even save it in GIF or JPG format and as well as even upload it to your Flickr account.

To find even more site like Picnik, take a look at the list at SimilarSites. I know there may be a few sites out there that some of you prefer and the more the merrier so feel free to add whatever I have missed out in the comments.

Hope this helps!