For the past four weeks I’ve been reviewing the sites nominated for 2003 Webby Awards, presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences – the Oscars of the Internet world. I’ve covered the categories from Activism though Living. This week it’s Music though Personal Web Sites.
Music
Flaming Lips – www.flaminglips.com
The Flaming Lips are an experimental band, combining art, performance art, and adding various styles and instruments to the usual musical formula to produce a unique sound. Music aside, this is a really cool site.
Metacritic – www.metacritic.com
This sites combines industry reviews to come up with an aggregate review of movies and music.
Okayplayer.com – www.okayplayer.com
Okayplayer is an online community for recording artists, mostly geared towards African Americans and fans of jazz, funk, R&B, rap, and hip-hop.
PinkNoises – www.pinknoises.com
This site is dedicated to women in electronica music, promoting the performers, the albums and the experiences. This is a good site for electronica fans, and electronica performers looking for advice and inspiration.
Tech.Nitions – www.technitions.com
This online resource links DJ’s affiliated with Tech.Nitians across the U.S., with links to Web sites and tons of online radio programming.
Net Art
Andy Deck-Art Context – http://artcontext.org/
This is an online art experiment, using various technologies and mediums to create and build art. It’s hard to navigate, but kind of cool once you get the hang of it.
Blinkenlights – www.blinkenlights.de
Blinkenlights combines lights, office buildings, Internet, and cell phones to create interactive displays in urban areas. The coup was a game of pong using the windows of an office building as pixels that could be controlled by cell phone.
Ear Studio – www.earstudio.com/projects/
Earstudio combines lights, music, performers, and interactive displays to create multimedia experience.
NYC Surveillance Camera Players – www.notbored.org/the-scp.html
The Surveillance Camera Players find surveillance cameras around New York, and perform impromptu silent films and movies in front of them, using placards to drive their point home.
Puppet Tool – www.lecielestbleu.com/puppettool/
This site collects videos of various puppet performance art, and puppet shows using everything from cardboard cut-outs to iMacs.
News
AllAfrica.com – www.allafrica.com
Africa barely makes the news in our part of the world, deserving the name the Dark Continent. AllAfrica assembles news reports from across Africa, which are updated several times a day.
BBC News Online – www.bbcnews.com
During the Iraq war, many Americans turned to the BBC in order to get a more accurate idea of what was going on. It’s gritty, dispassionate, even – everything a news organization should be.
Google News – http://news.google.com
Since Google starting posting news earlier this year, I’ve stopped visiting half a dozen sites. Basically Google scours news Web sites, posts links to top stories, and updates the whole thing regularly. In a word, comprehensive.
MSNBC – www.msnbc.com
This site links Microsoft, NBC, the Washington Post and other news organizations in one place, with written, audio and video reports. Fairly right wing, but pretty moderate by U.S. standards.
Romanesko – www.poynter.org/medianews
This is a news site about the news that tends to take the high road on issues, providing balanced commentary on the state of journalism and news reporting.
Personal
Cockeyed.com – www.cockeyed.com
This site is the domain of someone calling themselves Fat Wallet, and includes dozens of lists and personal features that range from funny to disturbing.
David Still – www.davidstill.org
Weird stuff. David Still claims that this isn’t a personal site, but a concept – he’ll loan anybody his identify.
Jeff Harris – www.jeffharris.org
The concept is an online journal where anybody can post a diary entry. Jeff picks one for every day, and puts it with an original photo of himself doing something.
Jenville – www.jenville.com
Jennifer Niederst Robbins is the inspiration for Jenville, a place that mixes cooking, indy music, and daily observations.
Nobody Here – www.nobodyhere.com
A weird and kind of wonderful personal site.
