FIVE SUPERFLUOUS SITES

“NowPublic is a participatory news network which mobilizes an army of reporters to cover the events that define our world…with thousands of reporters in over 140 countries—”now listing over 121,000 members in over 4000 cities. Stories fall into these categories: local, politics, culture, entertainment, life, places, favorites, and newsroom. Other features are “24hrs of photos and videos,” “Now on NowPublic,” and “good members.” There’s an RSS feed. Its parent company is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
This seems to me to be yet another newsline, albeit with user-generated stories. I’m not impressed, but you may find it useful.
URL: http://www.nowpublic.com/

“Truemors is a web site that enables you to “tell the world”—within the bounds of good taste and the law anyway. You can post your rumors, news, and sightings….” It is the product of Nononina, Inc., of Palo Alto, California, USA. Its categories are latest, greatest, auto, business, crap, entertainment, food, gaming, health, news, odd, politics, science, sex, sports, and tech. It, too, has an RSS feed available.

I like this one a bit more, but still don’t see a real need for it.

URL: http://truemors.com/

“LinkedIn is an online network of more than 12 million experienced professionals from around the world.” I like it because all fields in one’s profile are searchable, so you can find a classmate, fellow librarian, etc. It is free, but, of course, they also offer a paid version with more bells and whistles.

URL: http://www.linkedin.com/

Wikiseek searches only Wikipedia pages and sites referenced within it. The interface is extremely simple, like Google, and “as you type, Wikiseek will suggest categories related to your query term.” But aren’t the contents of Wikipedia findable from Google? Is there a real need for this service?

URL: http://www.wikiseek.com/

GlobalIncidentMap is more than unnecessary; it could be dangerous. It maps anything and everything that might possibly be related to terrorism. The categories are: airport/aviation incidents, arson/fire incidents, biological incidents/threats/anthrax hoaxes, bomb incidents/explosives/hoax devices/ chemical incidents, dam incidents, radiation incidents/smuggling/proliferation, chemical attack (how is this different than an incident), other suspicious activity, shipping/maritime/ports/cargo/waterways security, assassination/assassination attempt, railways/train stations, bus stations/bus security/bus related incidents, bridge/tunnel incidents and security, shootings/sniper incidents, terrorist arrests/captured/killed locations, general terrorism, and oil gas infrastructure: incidents/threats/news. It is a produce of TransitSecurityReport.

It is up-to-date: the Minnesota bridge collapse is included. This is a perfect example of why I call this a dangerous site. The collapse had nothing to do with terrorism. Two other examples: a crew leaves a train unattended—it could be hijacked and a theft of a chemical that could be converted to the poison ricin. Not only are these not in the same league as bombs attacks in Iraq (which are also mapped), but they could make people even more paranoid than they are now. I do not recommend its use.

URL:http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php