Thing 19 - Award Winners!

OK, I went and looked at the Web 2.0 Awards as suggested, and the most recent list dated from 2007, which is like a million years old in web years. So I poked around a little, and found out that cnet has something called the Webware100, an annual list of "cool apps for everyone".

Running down the topics list, I was understandably drawn to the Information & Reference page. And I actually have a reference question, involving a washing machine that leaves linty deposits on everything. So armed with my test question, I gave the suggested resources a spin. Most resources gave me a result, but none of them gave me anything better (or frankly different) than what I got from google. I think search engines are still largely a matter of preference, unless you're talking about truly specialty resources.

I decided I'd better play on some of the other resources, I signed up for stardoll.com. Far from the benign silliness of "electronic paperdolls" (as described on the can), this was in fact an uber-branded shopping mall experience, with clothes, accessories and decor all available for the buying. Ick. I'm sure kids (and others) will love it, but it grosses me out.

For what it's worth, in order to keep up with social media applications, I subscribe to Mashable's RSS feed - there's lots there I'm not interested in, but I do star about one entry a day to look at when I have more time.