I must fess up, I am not really a guru. I found many of these sites on other top 10 of 2011 lists from various places around the web. Frankly, Mashable and CNET have great predictions every year. Are they accurate? They have a good reputation for getting things mostly right—but you never know!
So here are some sites and trends to watch:
First off, Google usually has some very interesting developments. Google Labs is where you would find many of tomorrow’s everyday web tools. Particularly interesting are Google Body and the Google Books Ngram Viewer. The latter one is quite fascinating as it gives you a way to search for the frequency of a word or phrase in the entirety of Google’s scanned books. Google has scanned about 10% of all books ever published, which is literally oodles.
Speaking of Google, they have a Google Mobile feature whereby you can text a search query to Google (466453) and they will text you back an answer. It is similar to ChaCha, where you text a question, too (242242 is the number—aka “chacha”). But the site to really look for this year is Quora. Not a mobile/text based site—Quora acts a lot like Twitter but focused only on questions and answers. Sign up, follow some topics that you want to know about or are knowledgeable about, and then ask and/or answer questions as they come up. It seems to be a natural place for librarians to congregate. OSU’s University Libraries Blog has some great info on it.
Speaking of Twitter, do you know your Klout? Klout is a site where you can enter in a twitter user name and see some analytics of that account, including a Klout score. There are many more features when you sign up.
Within a few years, most people will be accessing the internet through a mobile device. Tablets will also proliferate. There are many sites that mesh with this new reality. Instagram and Picplz are two of many photo-related sites. They operate on iPhone (picplz on Android, too). Take a snapshot, add a creative filter if you want, and share almost instantly on Facebook, Twitter or Flickr. In just a few clicks you share your photos.
Foursquare and SCVNGR are two location-based services. Foursquare lets you “check in” each time you visit a place, thus letting your friends know where you are, suggest places, and collect points. SCVNGR takes it one step further, where you go places, do challenges, and earn points (with real rewards like free coffees or half off coupons), like a scavenger hunt. (Each site has an About link, in case you need more information before trying them out).
The social platform is ever-deepening on the web. Yet many people feel that the king right now, Facebook, has too many privacy issues, or is geared more towards acquaintances and not real friends (that guy you went to high school with but never talked to wants to be your friend?!?!). There are two sites that look to make a splash this year in response to these concerns. Diaspora, yet to be launched, is an open-source social network where you retain complete control of all of your information. It is a privacy maven’s dream. Path, a site created by former Facebook staff, dubs itself “the personal network.” Unlike twitter, say—where you can follow just about anyone (hundreds of people, etc), you are limited to just 50 members, under the assumption that the human animal can really only accommodate a limited number of authentic social relationships. By limiting it to 50, you can post whatever you want, knowing that the members authentically know you.
Kickstarter is a site, with Facebook and Twitter integration, that lets creative people, like artists, musicians or writers, raise money directly from the masses. A creator sets a deadline, fundraising goal, and possible rewards for backers. If the goal is reached, everyone is charged. If not, then the project is DOA. It’s a lot like other sites out there—IndieGogo and ChipIn being 2 examples. Kiva has been around for a while now—it is a microlending site, where you can directly fund someone’s forays into entrepreneurial life in the third world. Along the same lines of socially responsible investing, Jumo is a new site, still in beta, that congregates information on many individuals and organizations that are “working to change the world.” Find issues, follow their feeds, and support them.
There are plenty of other sites out there to look out for. Here’s a few more to check out:
Grooveshark & Spotify free and instant access to music anywhere!
Grubhub one of many food delivery sites.
Getaround is an hourly car rental company with a twist—members can rent out their own cars and make a few bucks!
Hipmunk is one of the most interesting flight search engines in a while. You can even sort by how agonizing a flight is going to be!
There are plenty other things to watch in 2011, including Apps and what came out at CES, but only time will tell what 2011 really has in store.
