Collection Development for My Random Life.

This is blowing up on the librarian blog-o-ga-ga-sphere… some engineers spun off from Google and formed the search engine Cuil!   I like the visual layout but I wonder if graphic heavy websites (especially those associated with advertising) may have an advantage. It was fun to “google” or would that be “cuil” your name in it.

I wonder if ever it will come the day when the search engine algorithms become open source and then the user can just choose the visual  interface that fits their own aesthetic and needs — and not have to worry about if they are receiving the best results from their search engines because it is not “google”.

The latest issue of the Economist contains their quarterly (duh!) Technology Quarterly section. The first article that caught my eye was Rummaging Through the Internet… you can read it here (if you didn’t already click back there, if you know what I mean).

The article mentions the company Cooliris and their PicLens and Previews tools which provide a visual representation of what images and videos are on a website without the clutter of text/metadata. PicLens is like a massive wall televisions ala Elvis’s living room in Graceland which provide visual information without having to “next” through everything.

Pretty sweet. I like the idea of “seeing” information on website so it isn’t hidden behind a link.

Wikinomics » Blog Archive » Wiki collaboration leads to happiness

Thanks to elearnspace for pointing this out. I am not sure I buy into the graphic completely because nobody uses just one platform to communicate anymore no matter how we try. The internet is a collections of worlds… making everyone use a wiki (and even email for that matter) is just like trying to make everyone speak English (or whatever you language of choice is).  But I guess it is the same as making everyone use Microsoft and PC’s. I personally am wary of online documents due to losing my work, privacy concerns, and the required internet connection.