I saw this from Kottke, and it is pretty interesting. 

Ostensibly, this particular research was supposed to show whether blogs or "traditional media" was more popular, with the measuring stick being Google mentions. 

But take a look at the results.

Wikipedia is ostensibly the winner here, with wikipedia articles being in the top 4 more often than not.

As this continues, Wikipedia looks to be the default place for articles on any aspect of the world.

I've been reading a lot of "integralians", who have been signing up for the social network Zaadz.  I am reading this with interest, but I haven't signed up yet.  

(It takes me awhile to "join", what can I say?)

From my initial review, I'm not sure it is the best of the up and coming social networks.  I am a fan of the open source Elgg, and also Barnraiser looks to have better features, at the moment.

However -

I was alerted by Ryan's post to this Flickr feature - and it is definitely very cool.  Ideas are voted on by the community, and then graphically displayed.

As expected, the largest graphics - "groups/tribes", "place to gather", "connection to others", "friends", etc.

I'm a busy guy, so I would have to agree that:  meeting in meatspace on a regular basis, with a like-minded community, is a difficult proposition currently.  I have taken - and am taking - steps to remedy this, but attention pulls to other things than building that community.

A lot of these I haven't used, so I need to give them a try.  This is an audio and slide presentation that takes about 30 minutes.  But you can skip ahead.

Here is the link.

Has anyone tried any of the tools listed?

I came across this article on personal web applications, that gathers in one place all the ways you can keep the data that is important to your life online

Pretty much everything:

Email?  Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc, etc.

Calendar? Try Kiko - or stay with Yahoo Calendar.

Simple Word documents?  Writely

Spreadsheets?  How about NumSum?

PowerPoint app?  How about S5?

Full office suite?  Well, you have ThinkFree and gOffice. 

Want one place to read all the blogs and news items you are intrested in, through RSS feeds?  Well, you have a million of course.  Google Reader, or Bloglines, or Kinja.

How about a very good personal organizer?  This is where Backpack comes in.

This article also pointed me to Barnraiser.  This looks like a REALLY good social networking application, that includes events, degrees of separation, interests,  and both your own blog, and reading others blogs, upload files, and a personal wiki!

The point here is, that over 90% - maybe more - of what a person does with his life in terms of data and productivity, can now be done online.

You know there has been all this discussion of whether Google, or Yahoo would come out with an office application, and "take on" Microsoft.  (And notice, nowhere did I mention Microsoft in ANY of the above applications, or actually anything installed on your desktop.)  And for myself, I always thought that it would be stupid to challenge Microsoft in terms of Office.  Office is a great product, and always has been.  Notice that Office is still an amazing seller on Apple machines, when there really is no NEED for it, per se.

But the truth is, the online world, and the various web applications are ALREADY taking on Microsoft.  If Google, or Yahoo, don't get in the game, or BUY one of the above better applications  -

they'll be left behind.  So they have to get moving, there really isn't much of a choice for them.

Also, what this means, in terms of Vince's Leapfrogging Dangers article. With a 100 dollar computer, you NOW have full, unfettered, and free access to a full office suite, a scheduler, you can create a network, read all your personalized news, blog, be a writer, form groups and advocate, improve the state of the world with your own wiki, or keep up a wiki of a subject you are interested in -

The future is HERE and the future is NOW.  For anyone on the planet who has an internet connection and a computer.  (Of course, that is easy to say, isn't it?  For billions, having a computer never even enters the consciousness of the person.)

It will be interesting to see what forms these applications take for the future, as they improve.

One of the issues that will be dealt with in the next 20 years - and it is already happening in England now - is a proliferation of video cameras on every city block, building, etc.

David Brin advances a novel way for society to deal with the all-seeing eyes here.

The point, as Brin mentions, is this:

Who will ultimately control the cameras?

Here it is. 

What does this mean? 

Well, before I was keeping a list of integral blogs.  But now, you can add a blog you consider integral yourself!  Or add your own blog!

Think of it as beginning practice for a long series of adding to the wiki!