Lilatovcocktail : MyBlogHer Profile

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Conventional wisdom is that the internet works best when people need "narrow, just-in-time learning" (Jakob Nielsen); several usability and eyetrack studies show that most of our time online is "purpose-driven" and spent impatiently scanning content in "ruthless pursuit of actionable content." While that's true, it's not always true. In my 17 years online, I've come to believe that you can really glimpse what the internet is and what it is capable of only when you're finding knowledge you're not necessarily in search of discovering something you never knew existed learning something that you had no idea you might want to know. If search engines, directories and the semantic web are attempts to tame, or at least quantify, the spontaneous spurts and spurs of web growth, the social web is an acknowledgement that some of the web's best and most pleasurable uses stem from accidental, tangential, atypical and ultimately uncontrollable connections among people. About half of the coolest things I find online these days come to me not in emails or on websites but in 140 character tweets from people I follow on twitter. Here's an example:  Read more >