Charlie Beall of The Darling Collective

Charlie Beall is founder of The Darling Collective, the online boutique for things to do. The site features services from top-end small businesses in the UK, hand-picked and curated by a small and dedicated team devoted to promoting unique, high quality entrepreneurial ventures.

CHARLIE'S FAVOURITE APPS

Hailo - It does one job and it does it incredibly well - calling for a taxi from where you are now, it tells you when the cab will arrive (typically a couple of minutes), it arrives, you get in. Simple but much much better than standing in the road, arms full of bags trying to flag a cab down.

Monocle - In a world where media brands are trying to be more hyper-local, these folks are unashamedly global in their outlook and they don't tailor their features regionally. What I particularly like about them is that they are old world agnostic: you'll find out as much about India, Scandinavia and the Philippines as you will about the US and Europe. In a global world, being defined increasingly by emerging economies Monocle has stolen a march on older media houses. As well as a diverse miscellany of features Monocle also has a 24 hour radio station where experts discuss design, entrepreneurship, travel, politics, the arts and more.

Fast Analytics - Running our own online business, our team is obsessed with stats and growing our user base so I check this two or three times a day. It hooks into your Google Analytics account and gives a user friendly interface to check what keywords are driving traffic to your site, what countries and cities they're coming from, the browsers they're using and who is referring most traffic your way.

Berry Bros & Rudd - For an old school wine shop in St James's these guys have a great tech set-up. I have long used their site to purchase wine and have recently downloaded their app which has some neat features including a virtual wine school, a vintage chart that tells you the best vintages by a the major wine varietals and regions and most importantly allows you to purchase wine on the move.

Dropbox - We have a number of remote employees so we use Dropbox as a virtual server for shared documents, photographs, files and spreadsheets. Without it we'd be lost, so having an app just adds to this service. I can check all our most important company files on the move without compromising their integrity or clogging up my mobile's memory.

TripAdvisor - A fantastic app to have open on the iPad when you're planning a weekend trip away to a new city - it shows you user reviews of all the sights, restaurants and hotels - a really good way to get up to date feedback on where you're going. Make sure you ignore the worst and best reviews though, it's best to consider the average!

Zite - Described as 'your personal slice of the zeitgeist', Zite delivers up a personalised magazine from a multitude of sources based on an analysis of your Twitter account and Google reader. This means you get a selection of articles from sources that are familiar to you, but you also get a lot of pleasant surprises along the way.

Nearest Tube - A bit of a techy show off app this one - it uses "augmented reality" and the compass in your phone to overlay the direction and distance to tube stations close by.

Remember The Milk - This is a fantastic To Do List and my surrogate memory. It's great as I can jot down thoughts wherever I am (in front on my computer, using my phone, lying on the sofa with the iPad) and have a good idea of what I need to do. For someone who has both a terrible memory and a stack of things to do in all areas of my life, this is fantastic... 

Turntable.fm - This defies description but I'll have a go ... it's essentially a virtual club with a bunch of rooms for different styles of music. The kicker is that you everyone gets a chance to get up and spin some of their favourite tunes - very addictive.

7 February 2012.