This Just In!

I wanted to share some sites I recently ran across that are super cool and exciting!

Juice is a great browser application that allows you to drag and drop chunks of text or pictures into the sidebar and "juice" other mentions (video, articles, etc.) on the topic. I just started using it with Firefox and so far, it's a fun way to discover more about the things you are interested in on the web.

Hakia is a search engine that provides credible results that are recommended by librarians. It uses relevancy instead of sites that pay to be at the top! Yay to librarian input and results!

Searchme is a visual search engine that has an "iTunes" type feel to it. You can choose from a "stacks" of material related to your search terms. For example, if you type in "black cats", the stacks "cats", "Halloween", "music", "history", "blogs", etc. all come up to search through. The pages also highlight your search terms much like the Google cache feature. Very cool visual search tool that is currently in beta (Searchme widget is at the bottom of this page).

One site I recently came across that is using the age-old "school textbooks are too expensive and not interactive" adage is Flat World Knowledge. It's a great example of how the internet is forcing the printed book to change! It's not yet in production, but this is a site to keep and eye out for - especially for students!

Yahoo! Pipes looks like a free alternative to InfoDesk. I haven't tested it out yet, but from what I read, it's pretty powerful in terms of aggregating all the sites and RSS feeds you subscribe to.

Clip Syndicate is a cool tool that allows you to search for TV news sites and turn them into RSS feeds.