I recently sent my boyfriend to Tesco to buy some sugar. Twenty minutes later, the phone rang. A bemused voice, verging on panic, said, “There’s 257 different types of sugar in front of me. Which one shall I buy, which one, which one?” Two hours later, he returned home with four different bags of sugar, all of varying shades, three of which are destined to go mouldy in my cupboard.

I feel pretty much the same about the amount of words that we are bombarded with. Every single day, columns and columns of news, features, information, advice, analysis, commentary, profiles and reviews are printed on reams and reams of paper. How do I know which ones to read, which ones to discard, and which ones to cut out and stick on my wall?

And that was before the Internet. Now, it’s a hopeless cause. Cyberspace is jam packed with words, and increasingly: videos, virals, podcasts, webinars, wikis and games - official, as well as unofficial - with bloggers (including myself) writing their own opinion on anything and everything to anyone that will listen.

So, how do you know where to look and who to trust – and where to express your own opinions? As the Internet matures and the information on it becomes increasingly unmanageable, it looks like niche communities will become its mainstay. In the world of B2B, where ‘niche’ is a key word, such communities are already springing up led by the likes of companies such as the Financial Times and Quark.

Hopefully, this will be the future of online. Once we’ve found our own niche, online worlds (and I’m sure each one of us will have a few for each area of our lives), we’ll find lots of the information we need in one place. So, if like me, you’re having trouble seeing the wood for the trees, don’t despair, your days of trawling the Internet for hours in a blind panic, or building a tower of newspapers to sift through at the weekend, may be numbered. Your own special community website will help to filter the information and give it to you straight – perhaps with a few opinions thrown in for good measure. I’m thinking of launching one called ‘Sugar for Starters’. It’s bound to take off.