This post was written by Laura Puls, Assistant Director of Research and Collections Services at the Council on Foreign Relations.

DuckDuckGo, an ad-free search engine that does not track individuals’ search histories, presents a visual explanation of why you and your colleagues get different search results in Google and Bing–and how these search engines modify future results based on your searches. Eli Pariser often discusses this concept (“invisible algorithmic editing of the web”). Pariser wrote The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You and gave a TedTalk about the “search bubble” where he challenges Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and other tech executives to do business differently, to not tailor (and, consequently, censor) results based on user preferences:

“Because they are mainly looking at what you click on first…instead of a balanced information diet, you can end up surrounded by information junk food.”

Pariser and a former The Onion employee started Upworthy, a news aggregation and sharing site in which humans, not algorithms, select articles that discuss issues that “really matter.”

SAGE has launched a networking site (socialsciencespace.com) that "aims to promote the value and relevance of the social sciences by bringing together researchers, funders, societies, think tanks and policy makers to explore, share and debate major issues…" Professional Content Report, Jan. 27, 2011.

The site includes a blog, forum, resource center and an events calendar.

Don't let the device train leave you at the station – check out our division past chair Marilyn Bromley's post on SLA's Future Ready 365 blog about what she is doing to keep up with demand for content on mobile devices.

And while you're there, join in and submit your own post!

The DSOC website is currently down as I am migrating our presence from Google Pages to Google Sites.  The new and improved version will be up within a week, and I will send a message to this list-serv inviting you all to check it out.  Thanks for your patience!

-Brandy, DSOC Webmaster

Understanding the New Web Era: Web 3.0, Linked Data, Semantic Web

"If Web 2.0 was about user generated content and social applications such as YouTube and Wikipedia, then Web 3.0 is about open and more structured data – which essentially makes the Web more 'intelligent'."

Written by Richard MacManus, "Understanding the New Web Era" summarizes a series of posts by Greg Boutin on what's coming next with the web.

"The smarter the data, the more things we can do with it."

Looking for SLA members and units on Twitter? SLA's Innovation Laboratory now includes a directory of SLA Twitter users. (Note you will need to log in, or create a free account if you don't already have one, to view pages on SLA's Wiki Spaces.)

Twitter, if you're not familiar with it, is a micro-blogging platform. The Social Science Division started tweeting using the #dsoc tag at the SLA Leadership Summit in January. You can follow our division tweets on our web site – or sign up for your own free Twitter account and follow us there!

According to the SLA directory, which was based on a survey conducted earlier this month, there are several DSOC members using Twitter, including myself and our chair-elect Marilyn Bromley. If you are a division member using Twitter, log on to the wiki page and add your name to the directory!