Webbies
Time for popcorn, fizzy drinks, paper hats and whatever else you need to enjoy the annual Webby Awards, which are being presented tonight in San Francisco. Don't worry about the travel costs, because this year the ceremony is being held online. People will be able to interact via Cuworld's live video chat, a photo-posting area, and message boards. "Lifelike, talking characters created by nominees and designed by Oddcast will deliver the five-words-or-less winners' speeches." You have to register online to get a user name and password by email, but the site doesn't seem to mention a deadline.
www.webbyawards.com/rsvp
www.cuworld.com
World Environment Day
Today is also World Environment Day, and events are being held around the world as part of the United Nations' environment programme. This year's theme is water, to link in with the International Year of Freshwater, and the official site provides a selection of resources including a water photo collection and an educational quiz: Are you water friendly?
www.unep.org/wed
Sight aid
Suranne Jones (who plays the underhand Karen McDonald) and the cabinet minister Ian McCartney recently popped into Mike Baldwin's knicker factory - well, the set of Coronation Street - to launch A-Sites: a web portal designed for visually impaired people. Sites that meet accessibility requirements can display an A-Sites logo and link back to the portal. Since a large proportion of websites are unusable even by people with perfect vision, the pickings are inevitably a bit thin. A couple of sections have only one site listed, and since it doesn't list itself, one category - Web Portals - has none.
www.a-sites.org
Help line
The government is also promoting a site to help and support those aged 16 to 19. More accurately, the web is just one of the ways the well-established Connexions Direct service can work. If you don't fancy getting advice via an online chat, you can send a text message or email, phone, or ask it to call you. Topics include relationships (including bullying), health (stress, addictions), money, housing, and careers.
www.connexions.gov.uk
www.connexions-direct.com
Whatsisname
WhoRemembersMe "is much more than just a Friends Reunited rip-off", the company claims. It is a database with soundalike searching, and doesn't just cover schools, colleges and universities. Other topics so far include housing estates, pubs, villages, various armed forces, children's homes and places of worship. Registration will cost £5 a year, but you will get the first year free if you sign up before September 1.
www.whoremembersme.com
Broad brother
Channel 4 and Real Networks have launched a premium (ie expensive) broadband service, 4Broadband, that apparently fulfils the voyeur's dream: live 24/7 streaming video with access to all 33 cameras in the Big Brother house. It costs £4.95 per month, or you can get it as part of the RealOne SuperPass service for £9.99 a month. ("Live" in this case means "subject to a short delay".) Sorry, I can't comment on the quality: I have not tried it.
www.channel4.com/bigbrother
uk.real.com/partners/channel4/?src=R1E.ch4
Geek test
With Matrix mania running rampant, you will obviously want to find out which Matrix persona you are. Not surprisingly, you can take a quiz and find out - though the result never seems to be the Cadillac. Meanwhile, half the blogosphere is pointing to The Geek Test, and if you are even geekier, you can also find out which operating system you are. This kind of thing is very popular on the web, and most people could probably list six of the best examples off the tops of their heads. Quizilla, for example, is infested with the things. Blogger Dane Carlson has made a little list by searching Google: his site has links to an impressive 899 quizzes, even though some of them aren't (Which type of holidaymaker are you? Guardian Unlimited Travel).
quizilla.com/users/trinitykills/quizzes/What%20Matrix%20Persona%20Are%20You%3F
www.cadillac.com/matrix
www.innergeek.us/geek.html
bbspot.com/News/2003/01/os_quiz.php
www.quizilla.com
www.carlsoncarlson.com
New & noted
The next Messenger
messenger.msn.com/support/sneakpeek.asp
Feedster with pictures
www.feedster.com/images.php
Barbecue weather watch
www.iceland.co.uk/weather
Six of the best: Browser start pages
Bookmarks
www.mybookmarks.com
Links
www.hotsheet.com
Surf
www.backflip.com
Search
www.faganfinder.com
News
www.newsisfree.com
Make your own
www.robotwisdom.com/web/starting.html
