Noah’s guide to the Internet
Since there are a few people who started blogs since my talk at Engelbart’s house yesterday (great writeup on that is here, by the way, thanks to Eileen Clegg and Jeff Saperstein) this is very timely: Noah Kagan has a 2006 Guide to the Internet. Noah says this is the “essential list of sites you need to know to become hip with Web 2.0 or throw down impressive sites at geek parties.
I appreciate being on that list, but think it’s missing a few. I can’t live without a good blog search engine. Choose between Technorati, Feedster, Pubsub, Icerocket, or Google’s blog search (right now I like Technorati better, but that changes daily). I also would put Memeorandum on this list (there are two Memeorandums, one for tech news, and one for politics/current event news — they change every few minutes.
Funny story my son told yesterday. I asked him during our discussion “why did you pick Blogger?” He said “I was bored one day so searched on Google for ‘how do you start a blog?’ The first link was to blogger.”
But, what he said next showed a great deal of astuteness: “of course Blogger is first cause Google owns Blogger.” That shows the power that being the top link on Google has.
Anyway when people ask me: How do you start a blog? I answer: WordPress.com. My wife says she recommends MSN Spaces when people ask her how to blog. Why? Cause it makes it harder to comment so she finds she doesn’t get as many negative comments as I do.
Oh, Eileen, I never owned a camera store. I helped run the camera section of LZ Premiums in the 1980s and early 1990s.
But, back to the topic: what sites do you think deserve to be on a “guide to the Internet?”
Oh, several people lately have been asking me about RSS. I like the BBC’s “what is RSS?” page for that answer.

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January 2nd, 2006 at 11:43 pm
Thanks for the mention Robert. The reason those sites were removed is that this list is for the non-techy. It is for the average Joe who wants to understand quickly what all the hype on the net is about.
noah
http://www.okdork.com
January 2nd, 2006 at 11:54 pm
Noah, cool, I would probably send folks to BBC or sites like that then. Yahoo Finance. A good news site. A good email client.
January 3rd, 2006 at 12:26 am
Harder to comment? And that’s a good feature? Merely making something hard to use, doesn’t equal goodwill. She doesn’t attract the “negative posters”, because she is a private person, and not of the hyperbole sort, she is not a spokesperson for a quite controversial company, and she is not one given to crazy loony statements that are half said just for their traffic value. If you’d switch to MSN Spaces, you’d still get the “negative” flack. For I’d be there. :)
Wow, what would be the marketing tagline? MSN Spaces: Harder to Comment, Less Conversations!
January 3rd, 2006 at 12:29 am
Christopher: believe me, in talking with people that’d be just fine with some folks.
But, you can always add comments to something hard to comment on (or, even impossible). Just start a blog of your own!
January 3rd, 2006 at 3:02 am
I’d substitute Newsgator for Bloglines, but that’s a personal preference. Only one immediate thought on anything missing, especially if we are talking non-tech, which is that I’d add Pandora.
January 3rd, 2006 at 3:09 am
Me, I can’t live without flickr, memeorandum, technorati, and a spanish Digg clone called meneame.net.
Ok, maybe this last one is too local for the guide… 8-)
January 3rd, 2006 at 3:10 am
[...] He visto el link a través de Scobleizer, donde Robert también echa en falta algunas cosas (además de agradecer estar incluido en la lista, claro… ). [...]
January 3rd, 2006 at 4:21 am
Of course, I am missing podcasting - not everyone is happy with just text or video.
Therefor I suggest Odeo (http://www.odeo.com/listen/featured/) as a portal to explore different podcasts and users as well as IT Conversations as a premier source of all kind of interesting podcasts.
January 3rd, 2006 at 7:47 am
I would add geocaching.com for the way it is merging our physical planet with the web.
January 3rd, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Hi Robert: I’m glad you liked the article Jeff and I wrote. It was a way for me to get a debrief and write a story about your event at Engelbart’s, while I was stranded in soggy Sonoma Cuonty. I made the correction, my apologies for the error. Looking forward to meeting you in person next time.
January 4th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
good article!