How the Internet has changed our lives

Saturday afternoon in Ireland. Six nations rugby on. Ireland has just narrowly beaten Scotland, and I am still fuming. It was a miserable match quite frankly. So now its Italy vs Wales in Roma. A much better match.

However, I have my laptop on my lap, and decided to do some more work and update my blog. I use both del.icio.us and Digg. The first allows you to bookmark your favourites and allows you to share them with others, and allows them to send you favourites. Again, the concept of community to share and to filter information. Listening to some of my podcasts, a lot of people use Digg to find new stories and information that comes off the alternative media such as bloggs, which lifts obscure stories into the mainstream. In Ireland they have free morning newspapers that are handed out. I am often amazed at the number of stories that come from the alternative media, implying that even the mainstream media are starting to use the alternative media to enable them to cut costs and improve productivity from their journalists. I love the way some of CNets pages use a heading cloud to show the most popular stories. If you go onto CNet, then onto any of the stories, there is a link on the right below the big fat advert, that says What is Hot, which it displays as a cloud with the level of popularity VERY clear in type size. Doing some serious multitasking at present- typing here, watching the rugby with my right eye and listening to the Buzz Out Loud tech podcast. (OK, not quite multitasking, more like round robining.... Interesting comment as it happens from Buzz Out Loud that MySpace is looking to start their own Digg type service. I suppose it would make sense.

OK, next start-up to look at from the CNN Money list is Wikia. As the name suggest, it is about being able to edit the site. The concept is editable community sites, supported by advertising. I suppose you can liken it to web page bulletin boards in terms of concept. Now I know some may take offense at that description, but the basic concept is that anyone can add to it, in the hope of improving it. I guess open source type concept. Had a quick look around, and it has quite a broad based community. Worth a visit, and if you are the brainy type that likes showing off your skills, go for it!!

Next up is the well debated in the mainstream media due to the ex Kazaa and Skype pair involved - Joost. The concept is still in beta, but is creating lots of hype. The idea is TV over your broadband connection wherever you are, and even interactive TV. Well, given who is behind it, it will be an interesting one to follow. You can have a look at some of their screenshots here.

Anyhow, at the moment Wales is ahead of Italy by 20 to 13, and it is time to log off for the day, just as Italy makes it 16 to Wales's 20.