My friends and I try to stay pretty hip to the trends, like the latest internet videos and television shows. We know who’s hot and why and when we talk to each other we speak only in internet memes. We’re trend-setters, that teach hipsters what to wear. Just kidding, nobody likes me. I’m a loser.

Still, a friend showed me something cool a few weeks ago called Qwiki. I signed up to be an alpha tester when available, and I got my email today. People, let me tell you, I couldn’t be much more dorked out about this.

To me, this is a big part of the future of the internet. That’s a heavy statement, but here’s the deal. You want to use the internet to find a local pet store, where you can buy parrot meat to make with squawk’n’beak bag mix for dinner, and you know the name of the place. Use Google Maps to search for: “terrible pet store near 0ZIP0″ Bingo, there’s the worst pet store in the world.

If you need to find the website for a band you like, search the band’s name in Google: “Lethargic Napkin Wrapper” and their site should come up as well as some other stuff you don’t care about.

Let’s say your goal was to learn more about that band though, eh? Maybe you’re doing a little research? Maybe you’d like to grow that brain organ of yours with some knowledge about the homies that be rocking your eardrums? Here’s where you’d want to use a resource like Wikipedia.

“But KYA, reading is hard and stupid. I don’t like it.”

While I enjoy reading, it can be a pain in the ass and a time-consuming process. This is where Qwiki comes to the rescue. Qwiki uses a magical algorithm to find the relevant information about a topic, then assembles a video demonstration of that information for you. Basically, it makes a presentation for you with images you can click during the presentation for a closer look, and other resources linked from that one. The learning never stops!

It’s kind of like having someone ridiculously knowledgable at your convenience. Can you imagine if you had to do a paper on Magellan when you were in school, and you had to use stupid, heavy, paper books? Ugh. What about if you had Wikipedia? Still too hard? Use Qwiki and have the Cliff’s Notes version of the information presented to you in a nice animated way with narration.

Good job, Internet. Carry on.