My favorite personal discovery so far in perusing the extensive awards and runners-up for the Webbys is the Ikea Dream Kitchen website, which stitches together a cycle of 360-degree views of new kitchens. There are many things that are great about this promotional vehicle, and they're all obvious, so check it out for yourself if you haven't seen it yet. Great stuff.
AnimatedKnots.com came up with a nice, simple online interface for learning how to tie almost any knot. Rather than using embedded video, the site threads together flipbook-style photographs which run once automatically and then can be accessed step-by-step using a timeline-style menu. Elegant, low-bandwidth, and better than video. I've never been able to learn to tie knots from a book, and this looks like a much easier way to do so. [Link]
Fuse #8 reports on the availability of the title of the seventh Harry Potter book on J.K. Rowling's website. Title aside, I like the publisher's use of the site as a promotional vehicle. It takes several mysterious steps to get to the underwhelming title, and there are other goodies on the site as well. My favorite is the "Rubbish" section, accessible from the main desktop by clicking on the pencil sharpener; the trash can contains responses to critics of the Harry Potter books and debunkings of various myths surrouding the series or its author.
I'm guessing a lot of kids will be pretty jazzed at having the opportunity to find out the title through mysterious means, so I won't give it away here. But Fuse #8 can tell you the steps to take to find it.
