When it comes to surfing the web, it's easy to get lost at sea. So let Moncrieff's regular guest Darragh Doyle, a man who knows a thing or two about what's weird and wonderful online, steer you in the right direction.
You can listen back to his full segment below, but here's what you need to know from the Internet this week...
- An opening video...
David Bowie was an internet pioneer. Before there was Napster (launched in 1999), the harbinger of digital disruption for the music business, there was BowieNet, Bowie’s online music destination, which debuted on Sept. 1, 1998. Noted as the first music artist created Internet Service Provider, BowieNet charged a monthly fee of $19.95 for Internet access via a customised version of Internet Explorer.
That package included news feeds (music, business, sports and finance), access to exclusive Bowie content, and 20MB (!) of space for users to build their own custom homepages. The service also offered custom email addresses (yourname@davidbowie.com or davidbowie.co.uk) and live chats with music artists and celebrities.
And as if that wasn't ambitious enough, BowieNet also offered 3D avatar chats, a user-controllable web-connected camera for viewing live concerts and BowieNet Radio, an online radio station with Bowie as DJ.
In honour of the late David Bowie, truly the first musician to understand how the Internet would come to play such an important role in all our lives, we can remind ourselves just how great an artist he was, when stripped back to just his voice:
- The Grade - Make the grade or be expelled
The Grade is a dating website with the hashtag #NoMoreCreeps. Endorsed by the most popular woman on OK Cupid, no less. “Meet a higher standard of dating with The Grade.”
They're a new app, meant to empower women in online dating. It does a lot of really cool things. If you spell something wrong, it brings your grade down. It checks on grammar, it checks on the amount of photos that you have – it actually is the first app that grades your photos. It lets other users tell you which photo is getting the best response. It, essentially, is the only app that will expel users if they’re being inappropriate or something.
They use a proprietary algorithm that assigns letter grades to users ranging from 'A+' to 'F' based profile quality, responsiveness, and peer-reviews generated from the opinions received from other users.You can swipe stress-free without worry of unrequited communication, hostile messaging and inappropriate photos.
- Raya - an exclusive dating and networking platform for people in creative industries
Raya is an exclusive dating and networking platform for people in creative industries. Raya’s primary goal is for like-minded people to have an easy, accessible, and comfortable platform on which to connect. There exist a number of online dating services for all kinds of niches. Raya is particularly for people in creative communities who use Instagram as a way to share their lives and their work. Our application process exists to maintain that ideal.
While there isn't a specific set of qualifications for applications, they will rarely, if ever, consider an applicant who wasn't referred by a current member of the Raya community.
The Raya selection committee is comprised of people from various backgrounds, geographies, and creative industries. Committee members are completely anonymous, so as to ensure each application is considered without exterior influence.
Available on iOS, though a six-month membership will set you back nearly €30.
A website that asks if you spent an hour differently a week, what could you achieve in 2016?
Offering choices from keeping a journal to learning to scuba dive to learning basic guitar, there’s a variety of links that can help you find good classes. You can also choose to increase the time by 30-minute segments - four hours suggests you become a Samaritan; five hours 30 minutes says you could read the top 25 greatest books ever, and 12 hours says you could learn a language.
Where could you find all this time? According to the latest Nielsen report, we spend an average of 5.3 hours a day on our TVs and devices, so there's at least one place to start!
- And finally...
Irish YouTuber Mary-Claire Fitzpatrick pokes fun at how Irish mammies interact with social media, with hilarious results.
To see what got covered last time, click here. You can listen back to this week's segment below:
