The internet is awash with information. Whether you are looking for information on cars or tin can production, you can be sure that there is a website which caters to your every need. Unlike the offline world, media outlets can cater for much smaller niches online. Because everyone from around the world can use the internet, coupled with the low cost of internet publishing, it is perfectly feasible for information to be written on a wide variety of subjects which do not cater for the masses.

Online search engines and directories also make finding information online much easier. Through using a search engine such as Google or Yahoo you can perform a search for a page that contains a keyword or phrase that is relevant to the information that you are looking for. The search engine will then present a list of pages that are sorted by the relevance of the pages to the search query that you entered.

Directories are also a useful resource for finding information, because instead of finding information that is sorted by an algorithm and gathered by a web crawler, you can benefit from the human touch. A directory can often be more helpful, because human perception is often much better at understanding user intent than an algorithm. An example of this is that if someone typed in “plumber” into a search engine, then the search engine will have no means of knowing if the person requires trade information for plumbers, a list of plumbers in their local area or information on the costs associated with hiring a plumber. With a directory they could have a main category called “Plumbers” and then sub-categories such as “trade information”, “plumbers in New York” and “Information on Choosing a Plumber”. This therefore makes it much easier for a directory user to navigate to the information they require than it does for a search engine user. With a directory a human editor will be able to remove SPAM and unhelpful content from their directory and therefore ensure that users will only be offered web pages that are genuinely helpful in yielding the results they require.

When someone is looking for educational resources then they do not want to be presented with options from companies that are looking to sell services, nor do they want to be manipulated into thinking they are getting information for free, then being asked to pay for it at the last minute. Such manipulative approaches to information retrieval plague the web in some respects; however that is not to say there should not be a way for media companies to earn revenue from sharing information. However, options such as clearly starting that there is a cost associated with viewing the content, or alternatively placing adverts along-side (but clearly separated from) content are also a great way to allow information sharing as part of a viable business model. With the evolution of the internet, viewing educational resources online will only get easier and more intuitive towards user demands.