50 Intelligent Recommendation Engines for the Most Intelligent Minds

Regular, generic searching just isn’t enough when you want to find references and websites that will supply you with quality information and research support. From exploring new music to finding new books and authors to discovering fascinating news stories from around the world, these intelligent recommendation engines will help you tap into the best of the web, for business and pleasure.

Books

Get recommendations for new titles, authors and genres to read.

1. What Should I Read Next?: This recommendation engine currently has 65,000 books in its vault.
2. Shelfari: With Shelari, you can view lists of highest rated and popular books in your favorite genres.
3. Reader2: Reader2 (Reader squared) recommends books you might like based on categories you’ve already tried out.
4. LibraryThing: This is part social network, part recommendation engine that works along with the Library of Congress catalog, Amazon.com, and more.
5. GoodReads: Get book recommendations sent to you from other users.
6. Books We Like: This user-generated recommendation site is marketed as a "giant common bookshelf."
7. Google Books: Google recommends books to you based on any thumbnail you click on.
8. Books-A-Million: Every time you pull information about a book on Books-A-Million’s website, they’ll list similar choices for you.
9. Alibris: Popular used, rare and out-of-print bookseller Alibris also recommends titles to you based on your searches.
10. Powell’s: Powell’s recommends its own favorites plus customized reading lists for you.

Internet Research

These recommendation engines use different strategies to analyze your searches and bring you quality websites.

11. Google Reader: Once you’ve selected a couple of journals or blogs to follow, this tool will direct you to similar pages.
12. StumbleUpon: You can give thumbs up or thumbs down to different websites StumbleUpon throws at you until they start sending you the quality sites you like.
13. Powerset: This information engine finds facts, summaries and more from Wikipedia and other websites.
14. Popego: Popego aims to bring you quality information from the web based on your searches.
15. Sproose: Add your own recommendations to Sproose to keep the search results even more exact.
16. Hakia: Hakia is a semantic search engine that only brings up quality websites recommended by librarians.
17. Kreeo: This search community connects you to the sites you’re really looking for.
18. Twine: Twine makes a point to get to know your interests and your online activity so that it can help you find new groups and websites.
19. Cuil: Cuil finds websites based on your keywords, then analyzes the page to make sure it’s what you really want. It sends you recommendations of sites, while keeping your search history private.
20. Ujiko: This is a highly interactive engine that lets you throw away or "heart" results to help the site discover your preferences.
21. Cluuz: Cluuz organizes search results according to what it thinks you consider most important.
22. Xmarks: Install this bookmark sync manager to get customized, quality search results.
23. Juice: Juice is a Firefox add-on that finds related information after you select "chunks" of text.
24. CiteULike: This journal and scholarly reference search engine lets you share articles and helps you discover new references.

Multimedia

From podcasts to documentaries to new music, you’ll never stop discovering new arts and entertainment when you use these tools.

25. Amazon: Amazon’s Recommendations system crawls your wish lists, shopping and search history, and more.
26. Joost: Look up classic movies and music, plus new releases, documentaries historical live performances, and more.
27. Netflix: Netflix recommends all kinds of documentaries, movies and concerts for you based on your preferences. Vote on things you’ve already watched to tailor the recommendations even further.
28. HBO: Get access to HBO’s groundbreaking specials, movies and television series while chatting with other fans and getting suggestions for what to watch.
29. Last.fm: Last.fm brings you music, videos and concerts after you search and play your favorites.
30. Pandora: Create new stations and get recommendations for new songs, artists based on your listening history.
31. MeeMix: Search for artists and create stations so that you can discover new music.
32. Zune: Get recommendations for podcasts, music, video and more from Zune.
33. ulike: The more you share on this site, the more tailored recommendations you’ll get for books, art, music and more.
34. liveplasma: If you want to learn more about music and movies from other countries, use this engine.
35. inSuggest: inSuggest makes recommendations for images and websites based on your tastes.
36. Veoh: Videos, TV shows, movies, music and whole channels can be discovered on this site.
37. Hulu: Watch TV shows and trailers and get recommendations for more things to watch with Hulu.

Current Events

Customize your news sites, organizing favorite reporters, preferred news sections, and more.

38. Evri: Evri lets you browse and discover news stories in politics, business, technology and other categories based on the trending topics everyone’s talking about.
39. Kosmix: Kosmix is a "beta-ish" news engine that brings you videos, articles and more.
40. Daylife: Use this search engine and aggregated news site when you want articles, videos, photos and categories streamed according to your preferences.
41. Alltop: Alltop saves your recent topics and customize the way you receive your news.
42. Congoo: This real-time news and networking site lets you fully customize the headlines and stories you want to read.
43. iGoogle: iGoogle brings you top news and displays blog posts, YouTube videos and more based on your preferences.
44. Wikio: Search news blogs, vote on stories, browse articles by categories, and get recommendations for interesting pieces to read.
45. getputs.com: Getputs.com is a news recommendation site that has categories like finance, food, business, art, investment, health, travel, software and more.
46. DailyMe: DailyMe is set up like a traditional newspaper website, but you can save clips, search for stories and writers, add content, organize your favorites and get directed to related stories.
47. Digg: Digg’s recommendation engine brings you content related to your Digg history.

Miscellaneous

From trip planning to customized search, here are even more intelligent recommendation engines you need to check out.

48. Listal: Users on this site list the stuff they love, including books, music, movies, and more.
49. GoPlanit: This is chiefly a travel planning site but it can also help you learn more about a certain part of the world you’re studying.
50. Rollyo: Personalize your own search engines by selecting different categories.

Ensuring You Attend a Nationally Accredited Online College

There are many horror stories floating around the internet of diploma mill online universities and other similar colleges which promise endless degrees that turn out to be worthless.  These students do not escape the high load of debt either, and are forced to pay back thousands of dollars to institutions which present themselves as accredited online colleges, but lack a true accreditation. 

Ensuring that you attend a nationally accredited online college is the first step in demonstrating your responsibility as an adult in researching for potential online schools.  Many of the schools that “trick” students are typically named after a similar traditional university which typically makes the “imposters” easy to spot.  Either that, or their accreditation lacks a certain form of sincerity.  Simply typing in the institution that the school is accredited from is one way to determine whether it is an actual school or one of the diploma mills that online students fear. 

One thing you do not want to end up with as an online student is an incredible amount of debt and no useful degree to show for it.  Typical college graduates leave school with around $20,000 in debt; while this number is drastically reduced for students of online colleges, racking up a similar amount of debt for a school that is not nationally or regionally accredited is one of the most wasteful uses of both time and money. 

Simply researching into potential online colleges can save you years of regret if you end up falling into one of these schools traps. Nationally accredited online colleges are easy to pick out in the search for online schools and are typically the schools with the highest ratings within the online community.  Earning a useable college degree has become a pricey endeavor, but it does not have to be without reward.  Accredited online colleges offer students the same opportunities that traditional classroom studies offer as well, but simply offer a new alternative for earning a degree.

Fixing America’s Schools Through Nationally Accredited Online Schools

By Alvina Lopez

America’s school system has drastically dropped down from once being in the top tier of educational programs around the world, as public and private universities have lost their edge in the foreign marketplace.  Whether this is from their lack of competition, their ranking systems, or the many advertising wars that have emerged with the creation of online schools that lack accreditation, the fact remains that our education system is in trouble and new programs are needed to bring the system back up again. 

Simply glancing back a few decades ago to the previous state of the school system reveals an outstanding change in policies.  High school graduates are no longer guaranteed a well-paying job; rather, students now need at least a Bachelor’s degree to be considered for most career opportunities.  Even this is slowly changing so that most companies now require a further Master’s degree.  So where do online schools fit in, in this complicated system?

Nationally accredited online schools have presented the American youth with a viable alternative for their future.  Amidst all the brewing questions about the future of our school system (should students really have a summer break?; should we have high school last an additional year?), online schools have risen to the challenge and allowed many students to take the initial step into a community or vocational school without completely devoting themselves to a 4-year program.  President Obama has backed this type of proposal and suggested that students better prepare themselves for a career by enrolling in a short community college program before attending a public or private university. 

This is a step in the right direction, as many students remain confused and unsure upon their first year at traditional universities.  Allowing students to remain at home for another year (maybe work on the side), while still attending online classes or even classes in their community will save time and money in the long run.  Many of these course credits will additionally transfer over to other institutions and help students decide what they inevitably want to major in.  President Obama’s plan embraces the possibility that the federal government would front the bill for this extra year of schooling, thereby saving even more money for concerned parents and students.  If this does end up happening, high school graduates will have no excuse not to enroll in such a program.

Nationally accredited schools fit in this puzzle of education because they offer students a wide array of options when beginning their higher educational experience.  Surveying the many accredited schools gives students a taste of what is out there in the education field and lets them pick and choose at their leisure, rather than be confined by their community courses.  While the future of the education system remains uncertain, nationally accredited online schools are slowly beginning to play a bigger role in contributing to a secure future for the country.