Don’t be Left Behind, Leap into the “Living Web”

Recently I posted on how social media is evolving. Its grown to encompass new ways of sharing info and networking, things that didn’t even exist a few years back. I almost feel as though I grew up in the Flintstone era, where my children never knew black and white television, 8 tracks, typewriters, rotary phones and roller skates with FOUR wheels! Is it me or does it feel like life is changing so quickly?

I’m sure I must be screaming my age with all of this but I do it because I realized I need to change! I need to change how I interact with my kids (Facebook and texting) , how I network (Twitter) and how I do my research (leapfish)!

Gone are the days when I would walk to the library to use their encyclopedias for my reports. In fact, kids don’t even WRITE book reports any longer! They do it on their computers and hand it to their teachers on disks. No more lugging around huge amounts of books back and forth from school, they can access their school websites and class syllabus on the Internet. Need to talk to your child? Well you better make sure you are internet savvy, especially if you have a tween/teen!Do I feel like an old fogey sometimes? Heck yeah I do! What can I do about it? I can make sure I keep abreast of all the new social media and, most importantly, USE it!

One of the sites that I recently discovered that has helped me keep up with all of the different applications is leapfish. It was recently unveiled to rave reviews online. Its press release stated that its a  “new multi-media and real-time search engine, communication, and sharing platform that gives consumers the most convenient, fun, and personalized way to experience and share the traditional and real-time Web – the new “Living Web.” They classify themselves as a “Living Web” because just like people, leapfish continues to grow and evolve, it does not stay stagnant.

The search engine searches the Internet in two ways: web search OR real time search. A web search will search the Internet via Google, Yahoo and Bing, while a real time search will pull info from Twitter, YouTube, Twitpic, and Flickr. To test it out, I decided to do a few searches using my Twitter name and my blog address, knowing what the results would be beforehand. I loved it! They did better then I expected! Why? Because it gave me the option of looking at Google, Yahoo and Bing during the same web search! I didn’t have to open three separate pages to see my results. I only needed to click a small tab on the side of the search page and voila… the results appeared! When I conducted a real time search, I saw my twitter timeline, as well as any YouTube, Twitpic, and Flickr items associated with it. It also gave me the Trending Topics on the side of the real time search page. Now how HOT is that?!

I tried to do a snapshot of the screens but I think my free trial finished.  Bummer 🙁

If you want to test it out yourself just click HERE. Before you do look at their video below. Dramatic isn’t it? Definitely catches the eye, at least it did mine! I also believe they live up to the hype and so does Mashable, Entrepreneur Magazine and the Stevie’s for Best Interface Design.