Posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 by Shachar Pessis
Knol – Google is excellent in search, will they be excellent in collaborative content? In order to examine this question Google has created Knol. The Knol project is a site that hosts many knols — units of knowledge — written about various subjects. The authors of the knols can take credit for their writing, provide credentials, and elicit peer reviews and comments. Users can provide feedback, comments, and related information. So the Knol project is a platform for sharing information, with multiple cues that help you evaluate the quality and veracity of information. If the above definition reminds you of Wikipedia – you are right, it sounds similar, however, the outcome is different. While Wikipedia offers you one definition per search, Knol will provide you with multiple answers. It can be best explained by an example: I searched Love on Wikipedia – I received one clear and thorough answer. On the other hand while I performed the same search on Knol I was retrieved with 43 results (as of today, I am sure it will grow). I am not stating what is better, just letting you in on the cold facts. I like both and will make future use of both. Wikipedia is more definite while Knol directs you to areas you didn’t think about while starting the search.
Opposing Views – Opposing Views is a modern platform of the ancient humankind activities – Debating. Each debate starts with Opposing Views picking a central question which is on people’s minds. Experts which must be recognized as leaders in their field go head-to-head and present their cases. Debates last three rounds: Argument, Objection, and Response. You as a spectator can join the debate by rating and commenting on it. What do you think of the phrase “Spare the rod, spoil the child“. Do you agree or disagree? Additional debating site that I stumbled through is DebatePedia however, visually, it isn’t as compelling as Opposing Views.
Kuku Klok – Do you have problems waking up? No more worries, set your desired time on KukuKlok and an annoying sound (cockerel, classic clock, electronic or a slayer guitar ) will make sure you wake on time. The great thing is that once loaded, the online alarm clock will work even if Internet connection goes down.
Muzu TV – Muzu.tv is a promising new streaming music video site which enables bands, artists, festivals, venues, broadcasters, music magazines and more to broadcast their music TV on the web. Moreover, the site rewards (ad supported business model) the bands for their content rather than just ripping them off. The site is still in beta and therefore not all features are available for all users but it definitely seems as a great answer to the low quality videos we watch on YouTube. Music should be respected and should be displayed using high quality streaming videos.
Propeller – Propeller is a social news portal, meaning that it is programmed by you – the audience. The users(registered users) post links to stories from all over the Web. Many of these stories originate from the websites of traditional media, including newspapers and magazines. But you will also find many stories that seldom pop up in the mainstream. Perhaps it does take a village – or at least a large community of news-hungry citizens – to nudge certain stories into the limelight. To make a long story short, Propeller is a good imitation of Digg. Why should you choose an imitation if you can go directly to the original source, well, maybe the people who choose the stories on Propeller are more of your kind. Check it out, maybe they are your cup of tea, after all, it is all about the people.
Write Rhymes – Nifty little site. Just type in a phrase, click the word you want rhymed, and boom you’re good to go. I’m not a poet, and don’t pretend to be so I tried rhyming All My Faves (apparently faves doesn’t exist so instead I used faces), this is the result “All will be found in the mall, oh My god don’t deny cause Faces are aces”.
Giant Bomb – GiantBomb is a Video Game Encyclopedia with full articles and images covering video games, characters, concepts and companies. The site is well organized and provides valuable (for game lovers) information. If you’ve found this post interesting, you probably have a good idea of who Mario is and why he’s significant to the gaming community, I was happy to learn that Mario is one of the most famous characters out there. This is not reality but it indeed provides a heck of a time, or maybe it is reality and our life is a game, think about it :-). For additional gaming sites check our Gaming Faveline (scroll down).
Cuil – If there is a human character that I truly hate, it is arrogance. Cuil are arrogant, bragging around how they are much better than Google and that they have indexed 121,617,892,992 web pages which is 3 times more than what Google indexes. Cuil is a nice search engine but thats it, and for Cuil’s knowledge Google has indexed more the 1,000,000,000,000 pages. Maybe you will like Cuil’s search results better but as far as searching is the issue, I am sticking with Google. My question is if searching is such a big issue – Why Search?
The Dark Knight – According to IMDB The Dark Knight is ranked by IMDB users as No. 1 – The best movie ever created. The movie is excellent and I would definitely consider it as the best Batman movie, however, I am not sure about ranking it as first among all movies. According to Webware’s Harrison Hoffman the No.1 rank was conquered by enthusiastic Batman fans that deliberately ranked down the previous No.1 – The Godfather. I guess the Batman fans are quite fanatic, much more than the Godfather’s ones. Well after all this nonsense – it is just a movie. Enjoy!
Playing with Fire – Strategically lay bombs and blast away blocks to get to your opponent, making sure to blow him away as well. This game is more fun when playing it along with a friend. Have a Blast!
