Web Monitor
15:59 UK time, Monday, 22 June 2009
A celebration of the riches of the web.
This week, Web Monitor's treasures include shipping forecasts on-demand, Steve Jobs ventriloquism and Moby's inner thoughts. When it comes to what to put on the web the question isn't "why?" but "why not?" Share your most interesting bits of the internet here by commenting in the box on the right.
• Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, doesn't have a blog. He doesn't need one - he has a who writes what he imagines Steve would write. Fake Steve has broken an 11-month silence to write about , claiming the New York Times technology correspondent David Pogue donated the organ as a measure of thanks:
"I was like, David, seriously, I only need half of it, and he was like, 'Seriously, man, after all you've done for me - I mean have you seen my house?'"
• Web Monitor is going to push the envelope today and show you an article that suggests blue-sky thinking from management gurus isn't all that clever after all. used to run a consultancy firm and suggests in his article that philosophy is just as useful as an MBA if you want to get into management - which has more to do with saying silly jargon with a straight face. Some might say Nietzsche said a lot of silly things with a straight face.
• about why he made his latest album in his bedroom - apparently it's all to do with integrity and aftershave:
"Technically perfect records are sort of like the musical equivalent of a man who wears too much cologne and always speaks just a bit too loudly. The process of making "Wait for Me" and giving myself the licence to make a record in my bedroom that I loved, was about 100 times more enjoyable than working on some of the records I've made in the past. A part of the inspiration for the album was a conversation I had with David Lynch, wherein he talked about art being judged for its integrity and its content, and not for its earnings potential. The marriage of art and commerce can, of course, yield interesting results, but only when the art comes before the commerce. When art or music is created solely for its viability in the marketplace, things invariably go very, very wrong."
• Web Monitor normally leaves analysing headlines to Paper Monitor. But this has forced us to break with tradition. The "guess the publication" game gets you to... wait for it... guess the publication the headline they generate comes from, then when you guess wrong, as Web Monitor did many times (much to Paper Monitor's disgust no doubt), it tells you all the different headlines for the story. Nothing's so shaken up newspaper stereotypes since the extent the Daily Mail website focuses on semi-clad ladies.
• a surge in people owning their own chickens in the US. Perhaps an unsurprising and old-fashioned reaction to the economic downturn. A revelation occurs in the fourth paragraph: "Hatcheries that deliver chicks by mail have reported backlogs." Just a moment. Chickens in the post?
• For some, the shipping forecast is the perfect end to a heavy day, with the calm tone of the announcer on Radio 4 reminding some how lucky they are to be tucked up in bed while others risk their lives for tomorrow's cod. But what if you want to go to sleep at a different time? Well Russell Davis created , an on-demand shipping forecast. Not really suitable for sailors, given that it repeats Tuesday 24 February's forecast, but perfect if you like wondering what North Utsire / South Utsire means. Be warned, it must have made Russell Davies so sleepy that he only remembered to tell anyone about it after reminded him.
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