What do all these things have in common? They are all examples of how looking for different kinds of information will determine the path you take to get there. It sounds simple enough - it is - but it's still worth exploring a little bit.

Your First Day at School
You're going to speak to people to find out where your classroom is because they know the place, you trust strangers to point you in the right direction because once upon a time they were in the same position you've found yourself in. It's also a good opportunity to bond with peers and bonding may come in handy one day, when you want to meet friends or join a club or speak to the pretty girls (or guys!).

Fire Exits
If there's a fire in your building, you're more likely to look at a wall map than ask someone where the exit is. Maps are easy to get to directly, have less room for error (none) whereas peers may panic under pressure or may not have been paying attention in the drills. Your life is at stake here, so it's quicker and safer to go with 'the writing on the wall'.

Star Trek
When it comes to exploring an area that's entirely new (like Space!), it makes sense to surround yourself with likeminded people who have the same goal as you but with different skill sets, just like Star Trek. If you don't happen to be on the SS Enterprise then it's good for you to be within easy reach of it, in case you need anything from them - particle matter, phasers, tractor beams etc. After all, they're the experts.

The illustrations above are analogies for how we navigate information. Websites are sources of information, but how we get there and what we encounter along the way is where the whole experience lies.

Being on the Enterprise would be awesome... at least for a while. A utility that allowed people to go back and forth from deep space, while giving them access to the knowledge and information the spaceship provides, would be an ultimate utility. For school, a utility that told you not only what you need to know, but what you may want to know, too - perhaps with different people's interpretations, would be more valuable than simply a list of sites. As for fire exits, lights and directions are utilities - the exit itself is the website. Sometimes all we want is direction.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the future doesn't lie in compiling information in a website, but in offering a service with which to digest it however you want - personal utilities.

In the future I don't expect to see websites appearing on Google. In fact, I don't expect Google to exist as it does now. I expect a sheet with a series of app-style tools that do the searching for me and don't offer me sites, but offer me information. More info, fewer sites, less clicks, more time.

Lyndon