Miles Mendoza's Website of the Day ... and more!

Monkey Olympics, Proms, Wikipedia rivals and online Pollack-esque artwork.

New this week

>> Monkey Olympics
If you saw Eastenders last night you may have spotted the first trailer for the BBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics, featuring music and animation created by Gorillaz collaborators Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. Watch the full two minute animation featuring “the immortal Monkey King - as highly skilled in the art of magic as he is in speed, strength and agility” and his cohorts Sandy and Pigsy. The BBC Olympics site introduces the characters and explains how they were inspired by Journey to the West - one of the four most important works of fiction in China's history. More on the BBC Olympics site in a couple of weeks.

>> Google Knol
This is the first public version of a project described by Web User magazine as “Google's Wikipedia rival”. According to Google “A knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read. The goal is for knols to cover all topics, from scientific concepts, to medical information, from geographical and historical, to entertainment, from product information, to how-to-fix-it instructions"

Something musical

>> Proms 2008
Just ahead of the first ever Doctor Who prom here’s a plug for the Beeb’s online coverage of the UK’s most popular and least stuffy classical music festival. This year’s super-colourful site includes a really good introduction to the history of the festival plus expanded 'Proms Plus' listings, embedded video and audio clips and a selection of wallpapers to download.

Something Arty

>> Wet Paint – Please Touch
We’ve seen a few online paint tools before, but this is the first one which hangs its virtual canvas on the side of an equally virtual building. Your invited to grab a brush, or roller from the side of the kerb in order to create your own “Can-you-tell-what-it-is-yet” style masterpiece. Uniquely there’s even a brush called the Jackson P which can be used to help create your Pollack-esque convas. When you run out of paint you can choose whether to pass it on to another online painter to complete, or whether to declare it finished and have it hung in the public gallery

Wikipedia Vision

>> Wikipedia Vision
Last year we talked about Flickrvision , which uses Google Maps (and the 3D spinning globe FreeEarth) to keep track of new photos uploaded to the popular photo-sharing site Flickr, by pinpointing their location on the map.
The Flickrvision map updates in real-time, making it a particularly addictive way to explore some really terrific photos.

Wikipedia Vision uses a similar idea but applies it to Wikipedia. I’ve always described Wikipedia as a vibrant living breathing encyclopaedia; Now this site lets you see at a glance where in the world someone has just updated a wikipedia entry.
Each map pin displays the title of the updated article, location of the Wikipedia user and a link for the full article. With new map pins popping up every few seconds it’s a fantastic way to see one of the world’s most popular free reference tools growing in real time.

>> Read Miles’ original review of Flickr
>> Read Miles’ original review of Flickrvision
>> Read Miles’ original review of Wikipedia

Bond 2.0

>> 007.com The new look official James Bond site is full of social-networky goodness, with lots of free Quantum Of Solace content for you to add to your blog or profile pages on Facebook or MySpace. Oh and the trailer for the forthcoming film is very enticing, with a good mix of menacing suspence, chases and explosions, and just enough shirtless 007 to appeal to the lady Bond-fan.    Click on the panel to the left of this text to play with the official Quantom Of Solace "widget" or follow the link to visit the official site.

Change Your World

>> Change Your World There was no time to mention this on the programme today but here's an honourable mention for a nice initiative from a green transport charity.  Visit the site to pledge to swap one car journey before the end of Change Your World week and walk, cycle, use public transport or car-share instead.   They’ll count how many people have traded in a car trip, and tell Gordon Brown that all of those people want to see government action to fight climate change. The campaign is supported by this tongue in cheek animation and youtube video: