What's out there?

What is out there?

Blog

A blog (a portmanteau of the term "web log") is a type of website or part of a website. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.


Flickr

Photo sharing websites have been around since the 90s, butit took a small startup site called Flickr to catapult the ideaof “sharing” into a full blown online community.Within the past couple of years, Flickr has become the fastest growingphoto sharing site on the web and is known as one of the first websites to use keyword “tags” to create associations and connections between photos and users of the site.



RSS feed

You’ve heard of RSS? You’ve seen those small funny tags on websites?

In the information world, RSS is not only revolutionalising the way news, media and content creators share information, but it also is swiftly changing the way everyday users are consuming information.RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is a file format for delivering regularly updated information over the web.Just think about the websites and news information sources you visit every day.
It takes time to visit those sites and scour the ad-filled and image-heavy pages for just the text you want to read, doesn’t it?

Now imagine if you could visit all those information sources and web pages in just one place and all at the same time … without being bombarded with advertising… without having to search for new information on the page you’d already seen or read before… and without having to consume a lot of time visiting each site individually.



Facebook

Facebook is a social networking* website launched in February 2004 that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc., with more than 500 million active users in July 2010. Users can add people as friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.
Users can create profiles with photos, lists of personal interests, contact information and other personal information. Communicating with friends and other users can be done through private or public messages or a chat feature. Users can also create and join interest groups and "like pages" (formerly called "fan pages" until April 19, 2010), some of which are maintained by organizations as a means of advertising. To allay concerns about privacy, Facebook enables users to choose their own privacy settings and choose who can see what parts of their profile.
The website is free to users and generates revenue from advertising, such as banner ads. By default, the viewing of detailed profile data is restricted to users from the same network and "reasonable community limitations".

*A social network service focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, e.g., who share interests and/or activities. A social network service essentially consists of a representation of each user (often a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of additional services. Most social network services are web based and provide means for users to interact over the internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging.


Windows Live Messenger (formerly named MSN Messenger)

Windows Live Messenger (formerly named MSN Messenger) is an instant messaging client. In June 2009, Microsoft reported the service attracted over 330 million active users each month.
Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real-time direct text-based communication between two or more people using personal computers or other devices. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet. More advanced instant messaging software clients also allow enhanced modes of communication, such as live voice or video calling.


Skype

Skype (pronounced /ˈskaɪp/) is a proprietary software application that allows users to make voice calls over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system. Skype has also become popular for its additional features which include instant messaging, file transfer, and video conferencing. The network is operated by a company called Skype Limited, headquartered in Luxembourg and partly owned by eBay.


Wiki

A wiki ( /ˈwɪki/ WIK-ee) is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used to create collaborative wiki websites, to power community websites, for personal note taking, in corporate intranets, and in knowledge management systems.
Wikis may exist to serve a specific purpose, and in such cases, users use their editorial rights to remove material that is considered "off topic." Such is the case of the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia. In contrast, open purpose wikis accept content without firm rules as to how the content should be organized.
The essence of the Wiki concept is as follows:
A wiki invites all users to edit any page or to create new pages within the wiki Web site, using only a plain-vanilla Web browser without any extra add-ons.
Wiki promotes meaningful topic associations between different pages by making page link creation almost intuitively easy and showing whether an intended target page exists or not.
A wiki is not a carefully crafted site for casual visitors. Instead, it seeks to involve the visitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the Web site landscape.


You Tube

YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos. Three former PayPal employees created YouTube in February 2005.[3] In November 2006. It uses Adobe Flash Video technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including CBS, BBC, VEVO and other organizations offer some of their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program.
Unregistered users can watch the videos, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos that are considered to contain potentially offensive content are available only to registered users 18 and older.




Twitter

Twitter is a social networking service, owned and operated by Twitter Inc that enables its users to send and read other user messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page. Tweets are publicly visible by default; however senders can restrict message delivery to their friends list. Users may subscribe to other author tweets—this is known as following and subscribers are known as followers.
While the service is free, accessing it through SMS may incur phone service provider fees. The website is based out in San Bruno, California near San Francisco (where the website was first based).
Since its creation in 2006 Twitter has gained notability and popularity worldwide and currently has more than 100 million users worldwide. It is sometimes described as the "SMS of the Internet."


Library Thing

Library Thing is a social cataloging web application for storing and sharing personal library catalogs and book lists.
Based in Portland, Maine, Library Thing went live on August 29, 2005. As of September 2009 it has 920,000 users and nearly 45 million books catalogued.
Users can:
· Join the world’s largest book club.
· Catalogue your books from Amazon, the Library of Congress and 690 other world libraries. Import from anywhere.
· Find people with eerily similar tastes.
· Find new books to read.
· Free Early Reviewer books from publishers and authors
While it is possible to keep a library catalog private, most people choose to make their catalogs public, which makes it possible to find others with similar tastes. Users can browse the entire database by searching titles, authors, or tags generated by users as they enter books into their libraries.