Web Monitor

15:56 UK time, Monday, 27 July 2009

A celebration of the riches of the web.

Web Monitor is feeling perkier now (unlike its poorly sibling) and is back in the driving seat of the Monitor Towers pick-up truck, cruising the internet, stopping off only to gather interesting bits, sling 'em in the back and bring 'em home to you.

• Honesty Lab looks at how subjective honesty has become and is trying to get a consensus, according to criminal lawyer Stefan Fafinski talking to the BBC. In a style similar to the charming and self-explanatory Scenic Or Not, you can rate fibs, thefts and insurance scams in terms of how morally corrupt you find them. Lawyers and scientists are involved because the findings have implications for how juries work. The findings from the experiment will be presented at the British Science Festival in September. So could this herald a new age in crowdsourcing justice, or is it an early prototype for digital mob rule? Newspaper columnist Tom Sutcliffe doesn't have very high hopes, questioning the validity of results because they are online and, in his eyes, superficial. The New Law Model, a blog which helps "lawyers to thrive in the digital age" describes Honesty Lab as the 1982 Ghosh Test dragged into the 21st Century. Ghosh was a surgeon convicted of obtaining money by claiming fees for work that others had carried out. In his appeal, the judge told the jury to use their common sense to decide whether Ghosh had been dishonest.

• A perfect example of changing morals can be seen in attitudes towards downloading music and films, and more generally what we're prepared to pay for online - a topic discussed in Phil Gyford's blog. Should we be welcoming in a new era of free stuff and finding new ways to fund it? Web Monitor has spoken of this before, and has watched the debate between Chris Anderson (everything will become free) and Malcolm Gladwell (free is an impossibility). Mr Gyford (he of Pepys' Diary) seriously considers which websites he would be prepared to pay for and lists just three - Daring Fireball, which puts together articles about Apple, Kottke, and David Smith's Preoccupations ...which happens to be a favourite of Web Monitor when fishing for tasty treats.

• As the Financial Times reports that Apple is trying to bring back albums, The Quietus reminisces about one of the format's many so-called "golden age"s: the Britpop '90s. Garish patriotism or unparalleled optimism? Luke Turner isn't sure:

"So Britpop was at its worst when it was waving Union Flags, indulging in Blur's shape-shifting class tourism and hovering chisel in the bogs of the Groucho Club. It was at its best when, like the Auteurs' entire catalogue or Pulp tracks like 'I Spy', archly and intelligently depicted the seedy undercurrents to Englishness, or, however superficially, helped out sexually confused youth."

• Dan Hill (formerly of a nearby parish) in the blog that accompanies the Speechification podcast backs up one of the theories that Web Monitor has been investigating: that there is an online audio revolution going on. Among his favourite sites of sound are The Monocle Weekly (from another of Mr Hill's erstwhile homes), the Guardian's Football Weekly and The New Yorker's fiction podcast. And as well as AudioBoo, another audio-sharing website that's emerged recently is Spoken Word.

• Do you wonder whether certain among your friends have had any time to enjoy their holidays after the time-consuming output of pictures, blog posts and Twitter updates they've been feeding you, asks social media expert Danah Boyd. She says that they could be addicted to documenting their lives, something Charlie Brooker noted in the Guardian back in 2007:

"They were all photographing themselves. In fact, that's all they seemed to be doing. Standing around in expensive clothes, snapping away with phones and cameras. One pose after another, as though they needed to prove their own existence, right there, in the moment. Crucially, this seemed to be the reason they were there in the first place. There was very little dancing. Just pouting and flashbulbs."

Talking of Mr Brooker, a dating website called OK Cupid wants to grab your attention by quizzing you on how similar you are to Charlie Brooker. Web Monitor was described as vanilla ice-cream, and will now spend the evening wondering whether to take that as a compliment.