What Are Trails?

Generically speaking, a trail is simply a list of bookmark links about a particular topic. We use the term "trail" from the metaphor of an ant trail, but trails can serve two different purposes, depending on whether you create a trail or you are using a trail created by someone else.

Trails From the Perspective of the Author

As an author, a trail can be a collection of your favorite links about a particular topic. And those links are the bookmarks you can use from any browser to access these Web resources anytime anywhere. A trail can also be maintained by a group of users who share an interest in the trail's topic, and who all submit new links, annotate links, vote on which links are best, and so forth. So trails from the author's perspective are a living, changing record and resource that the author refers to and contributes to frequently.

Trails From the Perspective of the User

As a general Web user, these lists of the best links about a given topic will be viewed as more of a pre-packaged search result. And rather than a list of robotically indexed web pages matched by keyword, they will be the result of months of exploration and the editorial judgment of a group of people who have a particular interest and expertise in a topic. Much like scout ants in a colony create pheromone trails that other ants can follow to food sources, AntStorm trails help other users get straight to the "good stuff ". These trails are indexed by Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and other major search engines, so users searching for information can find them anywhere. If you participate in AntStorm, you'll be helping others find better information faster, so we don't all re-create the wheel, researching the same topics over and over again.