I’m also increasingly concerned about my dependence on Google for so much of my online life.
One man who has few such qualms is Bill Seitz, who has consistently stuck to his home-brewed WikiLog concept over the last 10+ years. I’ve criticised the idea of WikiLog before – with one of my high-falutin conceptual arguments – but actually I’ve had to admit that Seitz is right and I’m wrong. The virtues of combining wiki and weblog functionality in your own software (which means very easy, high-density linking between both types of entry, and consistency of managing the address, full ownership etc.) outweigh any qualms about the difference of addressing philosophies.
Now Seitz has gone back to adding functionality to his wiki : the WikiGraphBrowser adds dynamic visualisation that shows the links between pages, creating an instant “TouchGraph” style mind-map. I’m excited, partly because of the software he’s producing, but partly because here’s another smart person investing in wiki’s future.