

Alt Text Podcast

Download audio file:

Let's Make Website Mashups, Like Netflickr, Figg and BoingPress (.mp3)

Subscribe to the Alt Text podcast.

Sponsored by Verizon.

My bookmarks menu is getting too damn crowded. There are more than 11 billion websites in existence. Admittedly about 10 billion of those are link farms, but I'm fairly certain there's no way to fit the rest into my bookmarks no matter how many sub-menus I use.

It seems to me – for the purposes if this column – that the best way to reduce this clutter is to combine domains, creating a new site that incorporates the strengths of both the originals. I call these "dot combos" because I think I'm so freaking clever.

Netflickr

Subscribe to this service and they'll mail you three photos of someone's lame party. When you're done looking at one, mail it back and they'll send you a picture of some random bridge somewhere. There are sexy swimsuit pictures but those are always on "very long wait" status.

Figg

This community blog throws Fark and Digg together, insuring that that 95 percent of all frat boys with laptops will be members. The two cantankerous communities can't possibly co-exist in peace, however, so this will be a fight to the death! Which will win: yet another post about someone getting caught having sex with a farm animal, or yet another post confirming that the Wii is, indeed, out-selling the PS3?

BoingPress

This blogging service provides all the functionality of WordPress, and in addition automatically links to stories about DRM, the Creative Commons, Disneyland and anything John Hodgman does ever.

mapse.cx

This site helps you out with directions, but for some reason only displays routes involving tunnels.

WikiHarmony

Welcome to the only online dating service with profiles that anyone can edit! Personal descriptions are notoriously biased, and clearly only random people using pseudonyms can provide the objectivity necessary to decide whether Becky Jarker is a "fun, feisty redhead" or a "henna-addicted lush." Careful, though ... one too many boring dates and you'll be deleted as "non-notable."

Crooks & Cheezburgers

Who better to expose corruption in government than a bunch of adorable kitties? IM IN UR JUSTIS DEPARTMENT FIRING UR ATTORNEYS! INVISIBLE HABEUS CORPUS!

YouBay

The online auction service where you can buy bootleg copies of Family Guy, karaoke versions of My Humps, lunch with teenage girls who are willing to show a little cleavage in exchange for the illusion of friendship, and one extremely used ottoman.

Deviant Arcade

Webcomics leviathan Penny Arcade may be a force to be reckoned with in gaming and online entertainment, but how long do they think they can hold on without kowtowing to the manga crowd? By combining with Deviant Art, the strip re-imagines Gabe and Tycho as a short-tempered Japanese schoolgirl in a miniskirt and a very sad, sexually ambiguous prince, respectively. The plot lines will stay the same as now, only in every panel the characters will either be staring soulfully at the reader or bathing.

Craigsbitz

Thanks to this combination of Craigslist and Orbitz, you can browse the voluminous listings for all sorts of jobs, from blow to temp, then immediately book a flight and a hotel room to the city where the offer is being made. Hooking up with someone claiming to be bi-curious, attractive, female, or all three has never been easier!

The Smoking Amazon

The Smoking Gun did extremely well at uncovering the truth behind A Million Little Pieces. (For those who missed it, there were actually only 5,603 little pieces.) So why not have them investigate the sordid secrets behind every other book Amazon sells? For instance, in spite of just recently coming out with a new novel, it turns out J.R.R. Tolkien is dead. Alternatively, this could be a pornographic fetish site featuring smoking amazons. That would probably be pretty popular.

WiredSpace

Wired and MySpace combine to form a massive online community dedicated to discussing the latest in tech news as well as blaring MP3s at you. Feel free to join up and... wait a second. Your Prius doesn't have the GPS option? You only own two video game consoles? I'm sorry, we're not inviting cavemen.

- - -

Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjoberg eventually overcame these handicaps to write this with the help of his friends on IRC. Thanks, guys!

Caught Up in an Ugly Web of Cheesy Spider-Man Marketing

Still Caught in an Ugly Web of Spidey Marketing

Technology Breakthrough: A Geek Buys a New Car