trendwatching.com Japanese consumers can take a cellphone picture of a bottle of wine at a store or restaurant, send the photo to a website and within seconds receive details on the vintage they’re looking at. And American users of another site can find out which are the best seats on any make of passenger jet before they purchase tickets. These are examples of “infolust,” a burgeoning trend featured this month at trendwatching.com. Thousands of global trend-spotters are peering into every corner of consumer culture, looking for evolving global and local trends, and every month the site offers a briefing on something new.
google.com Virtually everyone who uses the Internet Googles something every day. But there’s a lot more to Google than its powerful search tool. Click on the “more” link on the Google page and check out all the other things the company’s wizards have been working on. Search the full text of a huge library of published books at Google Book Search. Shop at Froogle. Search for TV shows at Google Video. The coolest feature is Google Labs, which has beta versions of projects they’re working on. One project is Google Sets: Type in “George Washington, Calvin Coolidge, Abraham Lincoln,” and it’ll give you the whole set of U.S. presidents.
auraltimes.com Forget Cronkite, Rather, Couric. Here’s where you should be getting your news. “The Aural Times” is a hilarious singing online newspaper. Several times a week, editor in chief Josh Millard and his merry band of idiot interns post news updates set to song. The tunes are catchier than the old “SNL” tag line “I’m Chevy Chase, and you’re not.” Listen to the story “Rangers Catch Bear After Mauling” a couple times, and you won’t be able to get it out of your head. Same with “Pamela Anderson Calls for End to Seal Hunt.” The funniest part of the site, though, is Millard’s forum banter with the interns.
