Oh those vaunted "first 100 days," they are finally upon us. Roosevelt's legendary time period has long been applied to new administrations, but never so emphatically or with such hope as to the Obama administration. And now you can follow them! For commentary, there's The First 100 Days, for mainstream media there's Obama's First 100 Days, for a comparison between old and new there 100 Days: Starting the Job, From FDR to Obama, for new media there's Obama's First 100 Days, and finally, for a government perspective there's First 100 Days. I smell an idea for an ironic t-shirt...
posted by Cochise on Jan 22, 2009 - 13 comments

If you enjoyed Supermarket 2.0, you'll love brgr, aka Burger 2.0! Yes, it's your basic "if your hamburger were like a website/web celebrity/software product/tech company/buzzword" schtick, but some of them are funny. My faves [inside].
posted by wendell on Aug 26, 2007 - 14 comments

Ever wonder what's powering your favorite websites? Builtwith promises to give you a clear picture of what software and technologies are behind almost any site. Unfortunately, it's not always very accurate.
posted by IronLizard on Aug 13, 2007 - 20 comments

Newsfilter: 30,000 customers in the San Francisco area lost power today at about 1:50pm PDT, in a series of power failures which knocked out a major datacenter hub: 365 Main. The hub controls servers for many social media sites, including Technorati, Netflix, Yelp, Craigslist and all Six Apart properties, including TypePad, LiveJournal and Vox. (6A's twitter stream has updates.) More here and here. Amusingly enough, 365 Main tempted fate and released a press release today patting themselves on the back for "two years of 100-percent uptime".
posted by zarq on Jul 24, 2007 - 82 comments

People of the Web --very well done short video profiles of interesting people online. Mike Rogers of blogactive is on the front page now. Links to previous profiles are on the right, including Kirk Cameron, Caleb Shikles, Sherman Austin, and Josh Wolf.
posted by amberglow on Jun 1, 2007 - 3 comments

Before RSS and personalized aggregators such as Personalized Google and NetVibes, there was CRAYON, a service that allowed you to "CReAte Your Own Newspaper" by providing a page with links to chosen sources. [mi]
posted by divabat on Mar 28, 2007 - 11 comments

Moderate this! Love food? Love kvetching about how moderators suck? Here's a look inside what it takes to moderate a hugely popular site (Chowhound.com) and to have to explain to people over and over that you are not in fact, evil.
posted by spicynuts on Mar 13, 2007 - 23 comments

Alt Anti- Bizarro NoNewsFilter
posted by wendell on Aug 15, 2006 - 39 comments

The 50 coolest websites : according to Time Magazine, at least. Who cares if they changed the world or not: as long as they're cool, that's all that really matters! Unsurprisingly, Digg's in there, as is MySpace (!), but they somehow seem to have neglected Metafilter, deciding that Cute Overload is way more hip instead. And no, Flickr's not in this one either.
posted by chorltonmeateater on Aug 14, 2006 - 40 comments

Re: Take Back Mefi. Together for the very first time: 500 BC - First joke. 868 AD - First printed (dated) book. 1024 - First paper bank note. 1781 - First comic book. 1817 - First bike. 1840 - First stamp. 1876 - First novel ever written on a typewriter. 1880 - First Hello. 1895 - First X-ray. 1893 - First license plate. 1929 - First Oscar winners. 1936 - First true TV Dinner. 1946 - First Bikini. (More)
posted by growabrain on Aug 1, 2005 - 19 comments

Look at all the .gov sites infected by the "0wn3d by NoPh0BiA" hack. Sad.
posted by basilwhite on Feb 8, 2005 - 22 comments

Backfence.com wants to see a thousand tiny websites bloom, created by neighbors, for neighbors, and supported by local advertising. The founders' assumption is that many little people creating content for free will put big dollars in their pockets. (WaPo link, reg. req.) Is there an information gap in your life that "hyperlocal" websites could fill?
posted by stupidsexyFlanders on Dec 13, 2004 - 20 comments

Hacking open democracy. First came FaxYourMP, so technophobe MPs could be easily contacted by the 'net generation. Next were PublicWhip, DowningStreetSays and TheyWorkForYou (previously discussed here and here) to help voters keep tabs on what their elected representatives get up to in office. Coming soon are FaxYourRepresentative/WriteToThem, NotApathetic and YourConstituencyMailingList. (MI).
posted by grahamspankee on Dec 10, 2004 - 6 comments

If you had to pick your 5 Favorite web sites... ...what would they be? Yeah, it's the end of the year and we're all list-happy! Professor Barnhardt's Journal asked writers like Joel Stein, Dan Radosh and Rob Walker and bloggers what their favorite sites are. Sadly, not one mention of Metafilter!
posted by braun_richard on Dec 6, 2004 - 23 comments

Your favorite band's website sucks. I can't count the number of times I've wanted to share a band's great new tracks with friends over email and had to give them detailed instructions on how to navigate the flash popup (ok, first click on the band's launch panel, then look in the popup for something marked "sounds" then click that and click the stream button...what? you don't have the latest flash?), or if I love a band's music, I can't seem to find their tour dates even though I know they're on the road. Merlin drops the five golden rules for bands that do too good of a job keeping their fans from their music.
posted by mathowie on Dec 6, 2004 - 81 comments

Georgebush.com site blocked to viewers outside the United States. Surfers outside the US have been unable to visit the official re-election site of President George W Bush. The blocking of browsers sited outside the US began in the early hours of Monday morning.
posted by zaelic on Oct 27, 2004 - 57 comments

"BBC wields axe over websites" Some BBC websites are going to be going away soon due to a "public value test", discussed earlier here and here. This comes after the Graf Report and charges that they aren't different enough from commercial sites. Will you miss "Pure Soap," "Fantasy Football" and the others?
posted by Stoatfarm on Jul 5, 2004 - 4 comments

After the lunch hour, we'll help you relax a bit. Mood lit, time of day sensitive programming comes to your favorite local newspaper web portal. Will something like this fly? Has it been done before? Is this being done elsewhere now?
posted by crasspastor on Jan 26, 2004 - 16 comments

Want to create a Christmas list that's not limited to items available at Amazon? There are several universal wishlist websites at your disposal.
posted by sanitycheck on Nov 24, 2003 - 4 comments

What's The Best Excuse When You're Caught Reading MetaFilter... when you're supposed to be working? (More inside.)
posted by MiguelCardoso on Oct 25, 2003 - 39 comments

Hatred via weblog. The Jewish Internet Association, a tax-exempt, non-profit California corporation, considers the Internet a battleground, where "every channel must be utilized to resist and convert others to our defense and support." A whois showed they have the same mailing address as palestinefacts.org. However, examining their weblog reveals an agenda that is every bit as hateful as Hamas.

From a recent entry: "The Palestinian Arabs go through a pretense of having a government" .... "This must end. In the past the only way such murderous, bastard regimes have ended was through massive destruction of their people and lands." .... "The same process will be required to end the fraudulant "peace process" and come to the point where there can be a new start."

The JIA site links to a guide for shutting down offensive websites. Do you think the same techniques would work against them too?
posted by insomnia_lj on Oct 16, 2003 - 43 comments

Don Mueller's interests include single women, video production and radio/TV announcing. The fifty-something Colorado bachelor is "secretly famous" and a member of Mensa. Don debates why he's not attracted to fat women, takes lessons in flirting and provides statistical proof as to why he's still single. Don even hits a first date home run with the help of Old School Hollywood royalty! In the days of well-designed and well-written weblogs, this is one of a disappearing breed of personal websites that will be missed (albeit in an ironic kinda way).
posted by VelvetHellvis on Aug 15, 2003 - 32 comments

Hey everybody, it's Appropriate Michael Savage's name for your own purposes day! With contributions from Haypenny, über, Neal Pollack himself, and much, much, more, all in response to these threats.
posted by kickingtheground on Jun 26, 2003 - 19 comments

New York City's official website has been revamped. What are the good, and bad, models of a municipal site?
posted by liam on May 5, 2003 - 16 comments

The Most Delicious Food That's Also Very Good For You - - in fact, to my mind, the best food in the world, including all the tastiest unhealthy ones, is sashimi. And sushi comes second. But sometimes it's late at night or too early in the morning; you're broke; the restaurants are closed; you're nowhere near Tokyo's Tsukiji Fish Market and all your sushi etiquette, memories and knowledge; your favourite sushi websites; your well-thumbed sushi books and your fishy wishlists...are of no darn use to you. Then you remember it's late or early enough to hit your local fish market... And it's then that this ideologically incorrect and Hawaii-leaning, California-dreaming, somewhat Englishly-challenged set of video tutorials comes into its own! Truth be told, for the price of one fresh mackerel, one sardine, a slice of salmon... and sashimi is yours! [But who am I kidding? It's just not the same. Oh well, Windows Media required for the vids.]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Apr 19, 2003 - 28 comments

What does AUS$4 Million get you? A website. Not a very good one at that, but what do you expect when it's only 3.6mil over budget?
posted by Mick on Apr 4, 2003 - 24 comments

REbranding a few famous sites to more honestly represent the true nature of the sites.
posted by riffola on Apr 3, 2003 - 17 comments

Users don't like a lot of Flash - Looks like Macromedia's new Web site redesign that utilizes all Flash for its navigation isn't winning any awards with users, especially those running Opera and Apple's Safari browsers. It's nice looking, but I prefer a simpler design like here MetaFilter.
posted by MediaMan on Mar 11, 2003 - 53 comments

If you like movies, and you like to watch them on DVD, and appreciate in-depth, thoughtful analysis of various features on a particular DVD, then you need The DVD Journal. And nothing else.
posted by WolfDaddy on Feb 17, 2003 - 22 comments

Web sites protest by going black. A little over 100 web sites have bandied together to go black on this international day of protest. Some with interesting art, some with personal notes and others with strong words. Are there other web protests going on that you've heard of? Links?
posted by DragonBoy on Feb 15, 2003 - 16 comments

Fascist Websites for Children! Concerned that your children might not be getting the guidance that they need in their quest to grow up to be healthy and productive citizens of the Homeland? Worry no more! Hint, it's funny! (via sixdifferentways).
posted by Ufez Jones on Feb 4, 2003 - 13 comments

Forget BlogChalking. Go by the globe. A (slightly) simpler cousin of the GeoTags search engine (which I could never get useful information from anyway), the GeoURL ICBM Address Server (by Joshua Schachter of Memepool) pegs sites to specific points on the planet via good old-fashioned coordinates and META tags. While the web supposedly has no borders, many sites - like blogs - have a place at their heart, a virtual (if not physical) home. Now you can see if your site has neighbors. [Via Blogdex - More Inside]
posted by pzarquon on Jan 8, 2003 - 8 comments

Information deemed useful to terrorists is disappearing from government Web sites. I know this is old news, but this article details some of the specifics of whas has been happening. "The previous presumption, that publicly-funded information is the rightful property of the public until proven otherwise, has been replaced by the presumption that the public has to prove to a suspicious government that it deserves the information." I understand that as a nation we are hypersensitive now to terrorism, but isn't this just what the terrorists want? The loss of our freedoms to information?
posted by archimago on Dec 19, 2002 - 14 comments

Feng Shui for Web Designers Contains such helpful tidbits as "Macromedia Flash encourages curvy images and is therefore blessed with positive chi" and "The messy dithering of colours that occurs with JPEG compression is bad feng shui."
posted by oissubke on Dec 12, 2002 - 16 comments

The Apothecary's Drawer is the "play page" of writer and science journalist Ray Girvan. Here you'll find the Web equivalent of stuffed alligators, brass astrolabes and jars of leeches: an eclectic choice of links to scientific and artistic sites worldwide. Give it a try.
posted by Morphic on Nov 17, 2002 - 6 comments

criteria for optimal web design. i found this site very useful, if you're into web design and development; although it seems focused to the beginner (because of the Q&A layout), it has very useful information
posted by trismegisto on Nov 16, 2002 - 12 comments

Omar Zabir's Portal. It's a DHTML/Javascript tour de force. But is it for real, or a subtle joke? (IE only, I'm afraid, but worth booting Windows for).
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen on Nov 12, 2002 - 41 comments

Karyn has been saved. Her $20k debit has been paid off thanks to her website. 18 months of buying crap at department stores with credit cards were paid off even though her web site wasn't fancy, her story wasn't all that tragic, and many found it hard to sympathize with her . so what have we learned? is this a success story? is this another fine example of the web wielding it's magic? or will this open a can of worms for the next jackass who overspends and hopes the society will pay for their ills?
posted by tsarfan on Nov 11, 2002 - 77 comments

CNN.com Redesigned. "CNN.com has launched a new design that provides better navigation, larger photos, personalized weather, a new 'User Picks' feature, and more depth in specific subject areas, including technology, entertainment and world news." Is it really any better? I think it looks more cluttered than ever. What's the most usable news site?
posted by dayvin on Sep 19, 2002 - 44 comments

Alexa's Top 500 Websites - Accurate or not, here is Alexa.com's list of their top 500 ranked websites - globally. This has been touched on both earlier today and back in April. Today's top ten sites iclude two korean sites, one japanese, one chinese, and six us-based sites. Also a more-clear definition of Alexa's Ranking system is here, complete with biases listed (such as IE users only, Alexa Users only, etc).
posted by kokogiak on Aug 29, 2002 - 24 comments

This new RIAA lawsuit really frosts my cookies! I can't believe the Recording Industry Ass. of America has the balls to think they can censor the Internet, but they contend that "As a matter of fact, copyright itself was written into the Constitution before the Framers ever even got to the first 10 amendments." Therefore, the RIAA reserves for itself the right to determine which Internet websites you may view. Please discuss.
posted by Maxor on Aug 17, 2002 - 71 comments

Man hijacks al-Qaida Web site. He offers it to the FBI to use for intelligence gathering, but the FBI stumbles around for a week trying to find somebody with the technical abilities to take advantage of the site. By then, the site's militant Islamic visitors had discovered the ruse. Go figure.
posted by TBoneMcCool on Jul 30, 2002 - 24 comments

Have you ever wondered how many Am I X Or Not? sites there are? Check your names here. And if you're looking for inspiration for a new domain name look no further than this nifty tool that they have.
posted by ajbattrick on Jul 22, 2002 - 2 comments

A while back, I linked the world's smallest web site, which was 32px². Of course, someone would take that as some sort of a challenge.
So here's the new smallest site in all its glory: Dot16.
If you revisit Guimp, you'll note they're not too pleased about this.
posted by Su on Jul 19, 2002 - 13 comments

Want to see my content? It'll cost you your anonymity. Mandatory registration is making the rounds at major online news sites, as media companies try to peel away the Internet's cloak of anonymity and build closer relationships with their customers. But it's a tricky dance, and one that risks alienating news junkies when they bump into registration walls as they surf from site to site. Registration also throws up roadblocks for weblogs, community news sites, discussion boards and e-mail newsletters that point to news articles.
posted by srboisvert on Jun 29, 2002 - 24 comments

Five stars for BEST NEWS SOURCES SITE: FWJC - floating wreckage - jettisoned cargo. Who says design can't be simple. Looks like just another little news blog? Look again. Neat little pulldown menus conceal 26,000 links to beautifully organized lists of news and reference sources.
posted by sheauga on Jun 27, 2002 - 18 comments

30 days to a more accessible website This series is entitled "30 days to a more accessible weblog", and it will answer two questions. The first question is "Why should I make my weblog more accessible?" If you do not have a weblog, this series is not for you. The second question is "How can I make my weblog more accessible?" If you are not convinced by the first answer, you will not be interested in the second.
posted by mikewas on Jun 25, 2002 - 10 comments

Who caused the great flood?
Yesterday, Ernie posted a notice that Steve from Blue's Clues was leaving to become a rock star. Now Steve's web site seems to be down for bandwidth overages. They might be unrelated; still, it raises important questions about the possibility of accidentally overloading someone else's server. Where do burdens lie in this scenario? Does anyone have a historical perspective on this sort of situation? =]
posted by spaceboy86 on Apr 30, 2002 - 22 comments

Hacked Palestinian Sites Play Long Flash Movie of Pro-Israel Images
Alnakba.com, a political site, is here. It and alquds.com, a newspaper's site, are hosted by Intertech, a PA ISP. I've also found at least one other Intertech site that has been defaced (1, 2). The Flash file includes a list of names of Israeli citizens killed by Palestinians. At the end, the author has placed a link to his e-mail, "dannyzion@matavtv.net." In the source, the hacker identifies as "Hacked By shmaya / Israeli Operation Force. email- shmaya@shmaya.org.il."
    The movie is displayed though a single frame whose source is here. That site points to a message board. A mirror of Alquds is here.
posted by rschram on Apr 15, 2002 - 4 comments

Electric Pompeii. A distant church bell tolls, Tumbleweed blows, a lone wolf howls. Snapshots of websites preserved exactly as they were at the moment when the final redundancy notices were handed out...
posted by Spoon on Apr 11, 2002 - 6 comments