Social Aspects of the Internet
This page:
News and Culture |
The Social Web |
Internet Demographics |
Personal Effects
(Life Hacks) |
Cyberliberties |
History |
Future of the 'Net |
Hoaxes |
Scams and Spam
News and Culture
- CNet - Tech guides
- CNet News.com - Tech news
- Cybergrrl Webstation - Dedicated to getting women and girls online
- First Monday - Published the first Monday of every month, this peer-reviewed journal covers social aspects of the Internet, often with a library emphasis.
- NetFuture: Technology and Human Responsibility - A newsletter that looks at the big questions every four weeks
- Red Rock Eater - A guide to 'Net events, politics, and literature by Phil Agre
- Howard Rheingold - Author of Virtual Community (Find it in a library)
- Slashdot - Their motto is "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." A communal Weblog for coders, hackers, et al.
- Wired News
- HotWired - The electronic version of Wired magazine
- Webgrrls International
- See also:
- Weblogs
- Collaborative News Sites
- Search Engine Snooping
- Web for Kids
- Usenet Culture
- Googlewhacks
The Social Web
Many of these sites fall into the amorphous category known as Web 2.0 — sites that allow more user interactivity, commenting, tagging, networking, collaboration, etc. See also Weblogs, RSS, Collaborative News Sites, and Photo Sharing.
- Most Comprehensive Web 2.0 List - It's hard to argue with the title of this page
- Web 2.0 - A large directory with many categories (Shambles.net)
- CiteULike - Save and tag links to academic papers
- Connotea - Aimed at scientists and researchers who want to save journal articles
- Del.icio.us - Perhaps the most popular social bookmarking site
- Diigo - This bookmarking site allows you to annotate and blog your links easily
- Furl - Lets you save a copy of your favorite Web pages
- Ma.gnolia - Also saves copies of bookmarked pages. Some people prefer this interface to that of Del.icio.us.
- Netvouz
- RawSugar - Create a directory on a topic and make all tagged sites searchable
- StumbleUpon - Recommend Web sites, people, videos; as you do, the site "learns what you like" and gives you recommendations
- Free Bookmark Managers
- Nine Notable Uses for Social Bookmarking
- Wiki Software (Wikipedia)
- PBWiki
- Wetpaint
- Wikia
- Wiki Wiki Web - The original wiki; about computer programming
- Wikipedia - The most famous wiki, Wikipedia is a self-styled encyclopedia built by users. More about Wikipedia
- See also Library Wikis
- WikiIndex - "A wiki of wikis, wiki people and wiki ideas"
- Facebook - Aimed at high school and college students, but now open to anybody
- Friendster - One of the first such sites. Did you ever use it? Me neither.
- LinkedIn - Professional networking
- MySpace - Once more popular than Google, so they say
- Ning - Create your own social network
- Orkut - Google's social networking site
- Plaxo - Maintain contact lists. Plaxo Pulse lets you update friends with what you're doing on other social Web sites.
- Ryze - Business networking
- Tribe - Tribes are based on interests and locations
- Twitter - Tell everyone what you're doing — multiple times a day (for those who find Myspace and Facebook too slow, I guess)
Web 2.0 Directories:
Social Bookmarking Sites:
Save your bookmarks on the Web (so you can use them from any computer), tag them, share them with others, find the bookmarked sites of others with similar tastes to yours. Very similar are Collaborative News Sites, where users post links to news stories.
Web Directory
Tips
Wikis:
Wiki software allows a group to work on a Web site collaboratively. And users don't have to know HTML.
Wiki Hosts:
These sites provide wiki software and server space (often free). Work on an existing wiki or start your own.
Examples of Wikis:
Directory of Wikis:
Virtual Communities:
Some of us remember Howard Rheingold using this term about MUDs and MOOs. Now it refers to Web sites that allow teenagers fun-loving people of all ages to waste inordinate amounts of time meet and network. (Some of these sites are actually aimed at serious professionals.)
See also Discussion Groups and Weblogs.
Internet Demographics
- Pew Internet and American Life Project - Source of some interesting survey data on Internet use
- ClickZ Stats - Statistics for online marketing
Personal Effects
Life Hacks:
Fast-spreading meme inspired by the book Getting Things Done by David Allen (Find it in a library) and the 2004 conference presentation on Life Hacks by Danny O'Brien. Some of the tips found on these sites have to do with using the Internet to make life easier and more productive, some of them don't.
See also How-To
See also Personal Home Pages for sites that let you bring together all your favorite widgets, feeds, etc.
- 43 Folders - Blog on life hacks, both for personal productivity and using computers
- 43 Folders Wiki - The collective knowledge of the 43 Folders fanbase
- Getting Things Done - 43 Folders' take on the book and its methods
43 Folders:
The name comes from the 43 folders one would need to make a tickler file with one folder for each of the 31 days of the month plus the 12 months of the year.
- Dumb Little Man: Tips for Life
- LifeHack.org - "Daily digest and pointer on productivity, getting things done and lifehacks"
- Lifehacker - "Lifehacker recommends the downloads, web sites and shortcuts that actually save time. Don't live to geek; geek to live."
- Lunch and Learn: Getting Things Done - by librarian Steve Lawson, Colorado College
- Remember the Milk - Keep your to-do list online
- See also Personal Calendars (Online)
- Internet Addiction Guide by John M. Grohol, Psy.D.
- Netaholics Anonymous - A less-serious look at the subject
Internet Addiction:
Cyberliberties
- Anonymity and Privacy on the Internet
- American Civil Liberties Union's Privacy & Technology page
- Berkman Center for Internet & Society (Harvard Law School)
- GrepLaw - Slashdot-style news on cyberlaw
- Center for Democracy and Technology
- Chilling Effects Clearinghouse - News about threats to free speech on the Internet
- Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) - "Defending freedom in the digital world"
- Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
- NetCoalition - A group of major Internet companies, they are for continuing the free flow of information that has made the Internet what it is. They track policy developments, particularly related to privacy and databases.
- Privacy.net - Find out what can be known about you when you use the Internet
- Tech Law Journal - Covering many aspects of Internet law, including current legislation
- See also Anonymous E-mail
Cyberliberties include freedom of expression, the right to get information (including fair use), and privacy. The following pages deal with one or more of these issues.
History
- "As We May Think" - In this 1945 essay, Vannevar Bush's hypothetical "memex" prefigures hypertext and the Web — must reading for librarians and Net workers (The Atlantic)
- All About the Internet: History of the Internet - Links to Internet histories, including some written by the participants (Internet Society)
- CERN's Greatest Achievement: the World Wide Web - From the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, Geneva, Switzerland: Where the Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee
- Hobbes' Internet Timeline - From the 1950s to the present
- The Internet Archive - Storing an archive of the Internet (Web and Usenet) going back to 1996
- Internet Archive Wayback Machine - See Web pages as they were then. Here are some versions of my home page, 1999-2001
- Netizens: On the History and Impact of the Net - Full text of one of the first books on Internet culture (Find it in a library)
- W3C: World Wide Web Consortium - The people who make Web standards
- Yahoo Netrospective - Celebrating Yahoo's 10th anniversary (1995-2005)
Future of the 'Net
- Final Exam: The Future of Computing - Not really a prediction, just some good issues to chew on
- Internet 2 - The new academic network
Internet Hoaxes
- Snopes.com - Urban Legends Reference Pages
- April Fools on the Net
- Hoaxbusters (from CIAC, the government agency that investigates computer viruses)
- Computer Virus Myths home page [vmyths.com]
- Don't Spread That Hoax!
- Kaycee Nicole (Swenson) FAQ - The dying student who turned out to be fictional
- Vonnegut Commencement Speech That Wasn't See also The Cyber-Saga of the 'Sunscreen' Song, a Washington Post article on the Vonnegut and Denny Reikert hoaxes
- See also Urban legends and Evaluating Internet sites
Internet Scams and Spam
- Pyramid schemes like "Make
Cash Fast" are illegal
- Campaign Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (CAUCE)
- Fight Spam on the Internet
- How to Complain About Spam (Phil Agre)
- Internet ScamBusters
- Spam News - Everything you wanted to know about spam developments, including where to complain
- Top Ten Dot Cons - So-called business opportunities, credit card fraud, and other come-ons to avoid (U.S. Federal Trade Commission)
- The 3rd Annual Nigerian Email Conference
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