Internet picks of the week

The Streets

Mike Skinner is counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds to the last album he's going to put out under The Streets band name is released, but he's already moved on. Caught in an artistic stupor, he wrote on his site that he was just going to watch James Bond DVDs and try not to think about "the throbbing sensation engorging my inner soul". In the same blog entry Skinner launched a competition: the first piece of artwork someone tweeted him would be the front cover of his next album and the first piece of audio he was sent would form the background to a new song. He's all for experiments like this and is currently using Twitter like no other artist. He doesn't post on the service himself, but instead uses people's messages and questions to kick off songs and ideas which he posts as short "youstube" videos. It's brilliant, unpretentious, immediate and amusing.

Things Magazine

Things began as an offline print publication put together by a group of writers and historians from the Victoria & Albert Museum and Royal College Of Art. Since the magazine went from bi-annual to "just occasional", their blog has become their main outlet, with their links on architecture, art, fashion, music and travel making it one of the best link blogs out there. A particular area of expertise is their rooting out of great Flickr collections – from sets of baseball cards to "interesting roadscapes" – and the championing of specialist sites (like The Happy Pontist, which is dedicated to British bridge design).