Top of the ‘Net

I hope to provide you with “Top of the ‘Net” every weekend, which will usually be a list of not-to-be-missed web discoveries. Tune in!

Just when you think the Internet is saturated and things can’t get any more interesting, you discover new sites and blogs that just blow you away. I love to stumble across sites that make me ask: “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Three such sites come to mind, each one notable for its creativity. You must check these out:

1. One of my favorite blogs is Cake Wrecks, a clever blogspot blog that’s been around for just over a year and is “eating up” the competition on Google page ranks. Here’s the tag line for this blog: When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong. This is a hilarious site, create by Jen Yates, that feeds off the submissions of whacky looking cakes that readers have either made, ordered or received. Among other things, this site, and the others I list here, are successful because the owners write well. Look for great captions and subtitles. Here’s a sample cake photo from Cake Wrecks:

The title above this entry (which included a seriously long menu of “horse” cakes) was: Why beat a dead horse…when you can eat one?

Yates has written a book, naturally, and is selling a variety of T-shirts, affectionately called “Wreckwear.” Her contributors and fans (legions of them) are called Wreckies.

Now why didn’t I think of that?

2. Again, a site that lives and breathes based on the contributions of others: AwkwardFamily Photos. This one, which was featured on The Today Show last week, was also passed along by my work colleague, John Resanovich, who is always sending me cool sites. Warning: Before you go on AwkwardFamilyPhotos, take a bathroom break. Otherwise, you’ll have an accident from laughing so hard. These are some of the most hilarious photos you could imagine.

Here are a couple of samples from Awkward, also notable for its spot-on captions and subtitles.

This one is titled: Joy Ride

And this one is called Mommy-the-Pooh:

3. Finally, I must introduce you to Good Magazine’s examination of a series of photos of the insides of people’s refrigerators. They were produced by photographer Mark Menjivar, and collectively make a fascinating statement about what our refrigerators say about us. For example:

Here’s what the caption says:
Carpenter/Photographer | San Antonio, TX | 3-Person Household | 12-Point Buck | 2008

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Remix America Lets Us Mash Up History

I’m thoroughly impressed by so much out there on the web, but the newest addition to my “must-visit” list is Remix America, a video mashup website with an educational twist. Here’s what Remix America says about itself:

This country is a remix, it’s what we do. What did Jefferson and Paine and Adams do but mashup history, take a little from the Magna Carta, a little from John Locke, and a whole lot of rebellion. Now, thanks to the web and digital technology, everyone can join in. This is a unique moment in our history — We can rediscover the promise of the Declaration of Independence next to the music of Louis Armstrong next to the beats of the Beastie Boys and clips of our candidates talking about “Changes.” Every one of us can own our best expressions of liberty, democracy and freedom, remix them as they see fit, and share them with the world.

RemixAmerica.org is a multi-partisan, non-profit website that uses digital technology to give everyone the chance to own the words, the music, the images and sounds of America in digital form; to remix those expressions and ideas with their own; and to send the products of our community’s creativity out to the world… where others will come back to us and start it all over again…

Basically, Remix America, the brainchild of producer/philanthropist Norman Lear, wants to “change the National conversation” by offering a long list of historical videos, “America Then,” with a long list of more current videos, “America Now,” and offers anyone with the skills to use bits and pieces of those videos to create their own mashups that say something about this good country of ours. This is a must for classrooms, professors, teachers and technology directors. There’s a lesson around every corner on this website. Here’s just a sample, a remix from member WreckandSalvage. It’s a mashup of two months’ worth of Good Morning America snippets that somehow is an interesting take in the state or our country, the media and more:
video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsfree video player

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