I was listening to NPR awhile ago and heard an interesting discussion on how the internet is, contrary to popular belief, already being taken over by large corporations. Most people go to one bookstore for their books (Amazon), one or two places for their social media experience (Facebook, Twitter) and a couple of places for their random questions (Wikipedia, Google). The internet really isn’t as democratic as people might want to believe.
My first impulse was to rail about how untrue this was. After all, I visit a variety of eclectic and interesting sites. Sure, I hit the big ones listed up above, but I go to new and unusual webpages too.
Or do I? If I disregard the webcomics that I read how many websites do I really check on a regular basis?
Facebook; NY Times; Cracked.com; Twitter; Pandora
That’s it. Five websites not including my email. Three of which would clearly qualify as big companies. So in the interest of being a more cosmopolitan web denizen I’ve been trying to track down some other places to spend my time on the web. Here’s a list of some interesting websites that I’ve come across in my journeys.
StumbleUpon
Stumble Upon is actually a great way to find new websites. You put in things that you are interested in (mythology, activism, languages) and it sends you to random sites that match those parameters. As the NY Times puts it, it’s like “channel surfing the internet.”
Galaxy Zoo (here and here)
What started out as a chance for the general public to help astronomers sift through thousands of pictures taken by the Hubble Telescope of potential galaxies has blossomed into one of the best collaborative scientific experiences on the web. Through the power of the internet, and multiple independent classifications, citizen scientists can now help find galaxies and planets, analyze solar storms and lunar maps, explore galaxy mergers, transcribe old weather logs, and much more. It’s a fun experience, made all the better because users know that they and their discoveries are actually taken seriously.
The Independent Games Festival
If you consider yourself interested in games at all, this is a great website to check out. It’s basically a Sundance Festival for games and the website itself links to dozens of up and coming game designs that you can try out yourself and, often times, even give the designers your feedback. These are fun, interesting, games straight from the creators themselves.
Kickstarter
Like the idea of helping out with new projects but aren’t much of a gamer? Check out Kickstarter, a website dedicated to helping people with good ideas get their projects funded. People who are looking for investors put a project idea on Kickstarter and start spreading the word. Investors then come on board and pledge however much money they feel comfortable with, from $20 to $20,000, in return for rewards (usually copies of the finished project). But projects have a limited amount of time to raise the full amount or none of the pledged money changes hands, which lets “creators test concepts without risk.” The projects run the spectrum from art to food and their website is full of interesting people trying to make their dreams come true.
The Curiosity Shoppe
Are you a crafty person? (And I mean crafty in the line of likes-to-make-things-with-their-own-hands-folk and not mustache-twirling-shifty-eyes-sneaky-folk). Do you like to fill your house with random/useful little goodies? You should check out this website. Now.
That’s enough exploring for now. I’m off to take comfort in the familiar shores of Cracked.com, land of historical mustaches and logical analysis of pop culture.