hutcheson - 7:13 pm on Jul 2, 2007 (gmt 0)

These are all different tools, but of course you all know that.

I think, though, it's worth considering who would want a reason to try different tools. Centime is a sophisticated, heavy web user -- and can't afford not to use the most efficient tool, even if it takes some time to figure out how and when to use it.

A very light user, not particularly sophisticated about information-theory, will likely settle on one tool, and simply live with not finding information which that tool can't find. (For most such unsophisticated users today, that means Google. But many light users, it's AOL search. And, of course, for the hardcore of incurably stupid folk, it's MSN Search.)

So let me ask this: what would you suggest to a light internet/Google user wanting to be more sophisticated? That is, what tool is most likely to work for some task, and (just as important) most likely to be the obvious tool to use for that task?

Maybe:

Wikipedia, when (last millenium) you'd have used an encyclopedia?

Ebay (or Froogle) when (last millenium) you'd have used the newspaper classified ads?

Yellowpages.com and whitepages.com when (last millenium) you'd have used the phone book?