The Internet in 2035

I watched this video the other day which features Vint Cerf, commonly referred to as the father of the internet. He makes some outstanding predictions, while being a very engaging and likeable speaker. At the end of the speech, he warns us of the dangers of digitizing everything without a backup print document. What would happen if the materials we digitize today cannot be read by the software of the future? Everyone should be aware of the dangers of relying solely on technology, and he makes a good point at explaining this. By keeping our perspective broad and our minds open, we can move towards a digital environment while being conservative in our techniques.

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Social Apps and Searching

The other day, I was listening to an NPR Science Friday podcast about how sites like Netflix and Pandora try to recommend other things you might be interested in. Netflix is giving away prizes for people who can improve their recommendation algorithm. While these companies focus on better marketing solutions, one person who called into the show made me very proud to be in the library science field!

She pointed out that while it's nice to have suggestions on these websites, she was disappointed that the sites do not have the same searching functionality as databases at her local library!! I concur! There should be more advanced searching and filtering options to group and sort and drill down the way you would in EBSCO. Sure, you can search by genre or title, but how about adding other fields like director, year, songwriter, etc.? It's only a matter of time before people start to demand more options when searching social applications of all types.

Speaking of social apps, here are a few cool lists from Mashable.com.

70+ Free iPhone Apps for Social Media Mavens

50+ Sites for Book Lovers

Top 30 iPhone Apps for Organization and Productivity

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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.

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Get Zen With Your Inner 2.0

We all feel overwhelmed - here are a few questions that come to my mind when I think of internet and implementation:

• There are so many sites, so much news, so many things I don't know. Where do I start?
• Where am I supposed to go? What am I to do?
• Google = good. Is there anything else I'm missing?

Relax.

Ask yourself these questions, and choose one to begin with:

• Do I want to connect with old friends/classmates/colleagues?
• Do I just want to read news and stay up to date?
• Do I want to share my opinions with the world? Am I more interested in news than anything else?
• I kind of want to do all of the above.

In my next posts, I will give helpful sites and tips on how to best use the internet for your purposes. Not everyone cares about everything. I want to give you free alternatives / options to what you really want.

Stay tuned!

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