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Remember all the talk about the founder of Wikipedia looking to build a human-powered search engine which took place some time last year? Well, looks like an alpha version of the search engine has been released and it is called wikia search.

Although in the About page it was mentioned that ‘What you see here is our first alpha release. We are aware that the quality of the search results is low.‘, Wikia has been receiving some honest but harsh reviews since it went live. Michael Arrington from Techcrunch openly admitted that he is completely let down by the product.

Michael’s review at Techcrunch created quite a bit of buzz and there are some interesting debates going on about the whole thing. Some say the approach was to build it quick and release it often (which, by the way, is also one of the tips I learned from Web Directions South 2007), while others say given all the hype and wait that it has caused, the release should have been better.

My opinion? I did a few searches and while I can’t say I am happy with the search results that I was returned nor was I impressed with the usability, I think given time, and right amount of effort from its community, wikia search will eventually perform to its full potential.

Technorati Tags: search, search engine, wikia, reviews, web 2.0, human-powered

Most of us have a selection of websites that we go to everyday. I once read an article which talked about how the websites you frequent could be used to tell the kind of person you are. In this post, I am going to list down 10 websites that I visit (almost) everyday. Do let me know if it gives you a better idea of what kind of person I am.

stock.xchng - Network Cables (photo by nsoup)

1. Techcrunch
To get a scoop on many tech news such as the release of a new software/website, acquisition stories, and so on.

2. Sydney Morning Herald
Just so I am in the know.

3. Pink is the new blog
What’s a girl to do without her daily celebrity gossip fix?

4. Technorati
Because I am a sucker for popular topics in Blogosphere.

5. YouTube
Somebody needs you, somebody loves you, somebody dreams about you every single night… Yes, my favourite song of the moment and I have been playing the vid on YouTube non-stop lately.

6. Digg.com
People visit Digg for a number of different reasons; my reason - an inspiration.

7. FabSugar
Dresses, Skirts, Tops, Pants, Jeans, Bags, Shoes, and Boots!!

8. dooce ®
I discovered dooce ® during one of those aimless surfing I did as a college student, and I have been reading the blog religiously since.

9. Ezine Articles
Cos there are so many things I don’t know.

10. Burmese blogs/journals
And I read quite a few Burmese blogs/journals which are, of course, written in Burmese. Never forget your roots, I say. :P

When I saw this article, Today’s Web 3.0 Nonsense Blogstorm, my immediate reaction was: ‘Web 3.0 already?’.

That’s right, just when most of us are finally comfortable with all the buzz about Web 2.0 such as ajax, user-generated content, citizen journalism, social networking, just to name a few, a new one is coming to town. But personally, I am overjoyed at the arrival of Web 3.0; the World Wide Web is evolving rapidly and erratically and that is what makes it so exciting.

The term Web 3.0 was coined by John Markoff (The New York Times) in 2006 and many have tried to define Web 3.0 since then. Google CEO Eric Schmidt defined Web 3.0 as “applications that are pieced together” (Ref), Jason McCabe Calacanis, the CEO and co-founder of Weblogs Inc., “official” definition is “Web 3.0 is defined as the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted individuals using Web 2.0 technology as an enabling platform.” (Ref), Robert O’Brien’s award-winning definition of Web 3.0 which is “Web 3.0 – a decentralized asynchronous me”, granted him an free pass to Web 2.0 Expo (Ref), Steve Spalding published a fascinating post on How To Define Web 3.0, Sramana Mitra has submitted an interesting formula for the future Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS) and I am sure there are many more interesting ideas and discussions about Web 3.0 out there.

All the hype about Web 3.0 got me thinking and while I will not try to define it, I envision… (*pause for thought*) Web 3.0 as:

A borderless web
The ability to access and browse the web from just about anywhere using many devices. You don’t need to be at your workstation to be able to read news; you can just do so from the train, from the comfort of your bed or anywhere else using for example, a mobile phone. iPhone, anyone?

A single identity web
You can see this already shaping up with the introduction of OpenID. An OpenID provides an open (Duh!) and decentralized identity system which eliminates the need of multiple user accounts and can be used for any website.

A super-fast web
This is really a given and Reed Hastings, founder and CEO of Netflix, has already stated that “Web 1.0 was dial-up, 50K average bandwidth, Web 2.0 is an average 1 megabit of bandwidth and Web 3.0 will be 10 megabits of bandwidth all the time”. While I am not sure of the exact number, I am sure it will be fast - very fast!

An intelligent web
Naturally, people like it better when they are given suggestions when trying to achieve something. Google has implemented this concept into Google Suggest and Yahoo! has also done the same. An intelligent web will attempt to predict what the end-user is trying to achieve, and provide recommendations based on the prediction. Or better yet, it will try to decipher natural language.

A multimedia web
Multimedia, according to Wikipedia, is a combination of content forms: Text, Audio, Still Images, Animation, Video and Interactivity. Although it is arguable that the web is already multimedia-friendly, I don’t think we are seeing many forms of multimedia on the web just yet. But with a super-fast, borderless and intelligent web, a multimedia web sounds like the future of the next version of the web.

Technorati Tags: www, web 2.0, web 3.0, future

If you are seeing Out of Service message when you go to Digg.com, it is probably because they are pushing their redesign live. I got a glimpse of the new design this morning when trying to access the site.

Looks like new features such as Videos and Podcasts will be introduced soon too.

[Edit] Digg.com is now back online, but still with the old design. [/Edit]

[Edit2] The new and improved Digg is now live. [/Edit2]

Technorati Tags: digg, digg.com, design, redesign

Saw the above screenshot on Worse Than Failure: Curious Perversions in Information Technology website, and I found it so hilarious that I couldn’t resist the urge to post it up here.

That’s right; every “dynamic-looking” page was, in fact, static. It was going to be a long maintenance contract…

Source: When the Query String Is Just Not Enough