Loitering in the corners of the information supa highway, squatting in piles of vile stinking commercial data trash, the network beggars lie in wait for the meek to blag that extra quid. 'Scuse me, mister....www.irational.org/skint/

Dr Seuss ate my childhood! www.seussville.com/

When it comes to footie, you can't beat the Italians. www.vol.it/RETE_/

Close and save all your work before you try this link .... www.digicrime.com/explode.html

"Build your own Religious Cult in minutes." www.fadetoblack.com/cultkit/cult.htm

"Everything about the Web strains against our understanding of how literature is produced, of what literature is. The net is a post-structuralist wet dream. It's also shockingly dull." www.sitespecific.com/Site/Sandbox/Fiction/index.html

"All the people of our Web Site are Personal Friends and Extended family." Have a funkin' nice day! www.teleport.com/~amt/planetpeace/index.shtml

Alternative Employment Opportunities ... ahem.... www.pmes.com

Highly personal moments of supreme clarity. www.fray.com

Mein Gott, a useful accommodation Web site - so long as you're in America.... www.rent.net

  Graphical Gassing

Unless you own a significant number of shares in Microsoft, you're probably of the mindset that open systems are good systems. After all, open systems encourage development and spontaneous innovation, right? They're egalitarian, and, darn, isn't that what the Net is all about? Not any more, especially if you're interested in really new ways of communicating online.

Pushing the envelope of Web-based open standards, World Fiction is a DIY chat-space-cum-comic-book created by Boston-based Art Technology Group (ATG). NTT Data Corporation hired ATG to come up with an interactive experience for users on a collaborative community-building tip. ATG's creative director Christopher Edwards and his team came up with a Java applet-based graphical chat space in which members can create custom avatars, plus as many active objects as tickle their fancy.

Talking heads sprout word bubbles and hop in and out of the screen with the click of a mouse. In "Home on the Range", somebody seemingly devoid of a life has spent what must have been days creating a bar where the bottles fall over with a gunshot when you click on them. In "Tender Hearts" someone else is recreating the Frog and the Princess, complete with hopping frog and a ball that rolls across the screen. The idea - a site built for and by a community - is compelling, but it's all badly let down by the very open systems it professes to showcase.

Java is a fine, fine language. Indeed, ATG wrote its own impressive on-the-fly HTML software in Java. But interpret Java through the foggy lens of your browser and - kerplunk - things get slow and messy. Part of the charm of World Fiction is that it speaks to the obsessive geek in each of us - but even the card-carrying open-standards fundamentalist tires after the 14th crash.

Taking the proprietary path towards Avatarville, Time Warner's Palace chat space was designed from the ground up to offer avatar chat. It probably won't ever do much beyond that. And so while Palace's downloadable software is considerably less flexible than the entirely Web-based World Fiction, it does have the undeniable advantage of actually working.

For all the good words said about open systems, there are an awful lot of people happy to spend their time and the $20 it costs to register as a member of the Palace. Meanwhile, World Fiction lies near-moribund, hoping that the technology will someday catch up with the concept.

- Andy Rozmiarek

  And You Can't Lose It Under the Bed

Among the pantheon of great childhood toys, few can match the glory - and difficulty - of the Etch-A-Sketch. Now this most challenging of all artistic media has come to the Web at www.digitalstuff.com/web-a-sketch/. Just like the original, the Web version is tricky, time consuming, and difficult to master. One minor complaint: the Erase button, while effective, doesn't quite deliver the tactile satisfaction of shaking the lump of bullet-proof red plastic until you see stars.

- Colin J. Lingle

  Dirty Money

Do we know who funds our political parties? Err, not as such; this is Britain, remember? No other country would stand for it, least of all the US, where a thoroughly searchable database of political donations was online for a good six months before November's presidential election. Perusing the FECInfo siteis like peeking under the skirt of American democracy and finding her sporting a pair of see-through knickers. For example, on 22nd January 1996, Microsoft employee Ms Maria Eitel donated $250 to Bob Dole's election fund. The UK could do with a similar dose of transparency.

- Will Frederick

  Being Dirigible

Feeling blasé about the Web? Jaded even? Well, whisk yourself off to the Interfacing Reality site and allow your bottom jaw to drop just a smidgen. Grasping the concept of tiny autonomous robot airships is difficult enough. Getting your head around the idea that you can fly the Sarasota-based micro blimps from the comfort of your browser should bring you round. Flight times are published on the site, but be warned that the plug-in payload is heavy.

- Francis Trevor

  Burst Forth and Multiply

For smaller Web sites, selling banner webverts can seem like more hassle than it's worth. First locate an advertiser willing to spend money online, then suffer the indignity of being told to sod off because you're too small - highly delineated demographics notwithstanding. Given that site owners would rather be doing something else (like develop their site), the ground is fertile for a middleman prepared to push a package of well-targeted small sites up the nostrils of ever-dubious advertisers.

US-based Burst Media, run by a trio of experienced advertising salesmen, offers just such a "consolidation" service. Burst represents nearly 800 small sites, split into 32 different categories, and is selling banners aplenty to the likes of Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Hewlett-Packard and AOL. Rates of commission vary from 20% of revenue for a three year exclusive contract, to 50% if a site is only prepared to commit to the scheme month-by-month.

Mutterings of a similar webvert sales house being set up here in the UK are getting louder, probably under the stunningly creative monicker of the New Media Marketing and Sales Initiative. Backers include Reuters, Web marketeer Indexfinger and the omnipresent Web design company, Webmedia. The new service should see the light of day early this year.

- Tom Loosemore