How Can I Keep Up with the Latest Trends?

I heard that we are advancing our knowledge one hundred years worth every year and that we continue to do this every year. Can’t remember who said it and I’m not sure if it’s true, but if it was/is true, then consider this: we would now be learning one-thousand years worth of knowledge every one year that passes.

Everything that we, as humans, have learned since 1,000 A.D. Electricity, the light bulb, the telegraph, the phone, the TV, the computer, space flight, the Internet, etcetera. If we’re really learning that much, every year, then my big problem is this: how do I keep up with it all?

I’m the one that people ask, but there is so much going on-- especially in the areas of Apps, API’s and streaming media – that sometimes it seems I’m fighting not to keep with the trends, but just to stay relevant.

Fortunately, I’m pleased to report  that all is not lost! I have found a few ways to keep on top of things, and I wanted to share some of that with you.

IGoogle

IGoogle has been around a long while now, but it serves as my home page. The reason I like it is that it allows me to mix and match a variety of tools. I make it a point to at least find time to scan the headlines a few times a day, and if I have time, to actually read or watch a couple of the articles. At the very least it shows me what people are talking about, and what some of the current issues in my area of expertise are.

There are three examples that specifically illustrate the benefit of being able to pull multiple data sources to a page, and how this enables me to stay top of what’s happening at the moment:

Google Trends

How it Works:

Essentially, if an unusual search is going on, Google Trends notices the change and those with the most change are listed here. This is how Google says it works:

“Hot Searches reflects what people are searching for on Google today. Rather than showing the most popular searches overall, which would always be generic terms like “weather,” Hot Searches highlights searches that experience sudden surges in popularity, and updates that information hourly. Our algorithm analyzes millions of web searches performed on Google and displays those searches that deviate the most from their historic traffic pattern. The algorithm also filters out spam and removes inappropriate material. For each search, Hot Searches shows related searches and a Search Volume Index graph. The page also displays news, blog posts, and web results to give context about why a search may be appearing on the Hot Searches list. You can also choose a date in the past to see what the top Hot Searches were for that date by clicking change date.”

How It Helped Me Today-Tropical Storm Emily

I had been working on another project and didn’t have time to do much else so I was clueless about what was happening in the outside world. I went to IGoogle to get a screenshot for this blog, and noticed that NOAA was on top of Google Trends. I live in Florida, and we’re way past due for a hurricane, so NOAA being on top of the list definitely caught my attention enough to click:

Google Hot Trend #1:

A quick scan of the articles presented led me to the conclusion that there was a tropical storm that might turn into a hurricane and could come this way, but not for awhile. That’s interesting, relevant information for me. I could have gotten this probably from anyone of a dozen different media sources, but this is the one that my eyes actually seen. (Maybe tomorrow or the next day I’ll go check out what’s happening with it).

Google Hot Trend #2: Crop Circles

I’m interested in crop circles enough to wonder why there was a sudden surge in people searching on crop circles, and Google didn’t let me down. The headlines quickly told me there had been a new crop circle discovered, and it also showed me the old tired debate about crop circles on the other side. The new crop circle discovery piqued my curiosity, but being reminded of the same old back and forth dialogue made me slightly nauseous, so I moved on.

Webmaster Tools

I am forever logging into one of my Google accounts to check something, rather it be a Google Adwords campaign, Google Analytics, or Google AdSense.

This neat little add on doesn’t really keep me up to date anywhere, but it does put at my finger tips the places I go to frequently, so I figure it’s worth a little bit of my precious desktop. Incidentally, it was this Webmaster Tools gadget that allowed me to discover Google Trends!

A Note About API’s

The thing I only just touched on about these tools is that they are all made possible by API’s (Application Programming Interfaces), which it make it possible to bring several different data sources to a single web page. The abundance of available API’s makes almost anything imaginable possible. (Follow the link you’d like more information about Custom API Development).

NPR Technology News

Some technology news is too much for me to bare for being way too narrow or too self serving on the part of the news provider, or maybe just not applicable to me. Nevertheless, I like to know what’s going on, and I especially love NPR’s Technology News for their ability to pinpoint major trends and changes, and then provide an interesting, intelligent discussion about it.

If you want to know some of the highlights in a changing world, NPR technology news is a great place to hang!

Summary

API’s have made it easy for me to monitor a changing world by providing content streams from a number of different sources to provide the information that is interesting and relevant to me. While I have mentioned only a few of the myriad of tools available on the internet to do this, it is evident to me that continued use and expansion of multiple API’s to provide data to a specific web page is another trend that I need to watch, for it speaks of the future to me.

Google trends, Webmaster Tools, TweetDeck and the NPR Technology add-on are merely examples of how API’s are changing everything, and how I use them to keep up to date.

If you have a great idea about how to “mashup” something new, exciting and brilliant, please see how You can build it! for more information.

Twitter Trending Topics

Another useful tool to keep on top of what’s trending now is the Twitter’s Trending Topics. The graphic here shows how it looks from TweetDeck, an indispensible tool for any Social Media Manager. Notice that Tropical Storm Emily is listed again on the list of trending topics.

Clicking on the links in TweetDeck, or by searching on any of the #topicnames on Twitter will open up the Twitter Stream for that particular subject so you can see what is going on. (It doesn’t work real well in TweetDeck as there are usually so many updates they go by too fast to really to more than glance).  But on Twitter’s direct interface it works pretty well.

In anycase, to keep on top of what's happening, this is a great place to hang!