Name of Site: Reebok's Whodunit?
URL:
www.zugara.com/whodunit
Load Time: Scorching
Ease of Navigation: Walk in the Park
Plug Ins Required: Flash
Review: You know that marketing has gone to a whole new level when you find yourself solving murder mysteries on behalf of Reebok - yes that's right...the shoe company! After a basketball player gets himself killed in a mysterious midnight game you are called in to help the sports crime squad to analyse a series of clues in the form of a crime scene, interviews with suspects, evidence that you can analyse in the lab, messages on "your phone" and lots more! Featuring copious amounts of references to Reebok's shoes (or R-B-K as they seem to be known now), this site is an entertaining and innovative diversion from work. Now if I could just scrounge together a coupla hundred dollar bills for those new trainers I need so bad... - SS
Name of Site: Broken Saints
URL:
www.brokensaints.com
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: flash
Review: With Flash animation so often being used for toilet humour and crass little comics, it's refreshing to come across a site like Broken Saints. The site's main feature is a 22-chapter story, told using Flash-made anime-style cartooning, gripping music and haunting special effects. With chapter lengths hitting anything up to the 1-hour mark and more, this brings new meaning to the word 'epic'. While the actual Flash is nothing revolutionary, the combination of good story telling and sheer volume make this graphic novel a must for anyone with the connection, and need I say - the time to handle it! - SS
Name of Site: BigPond Broadband
URL:
www.bigpond.com.au
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: Flash, Windows Media Player
Review: It is a sad fact that many broadband packages come with fat download rates coupled with slim download limits. If, however, you are with Telstra, you will have the pleasure of running un-metered while at their BigPond Broadband site. Which is a good thing given the plethora of live music to listen to, movie previews and reviews, sportscasts, game downloads and hosts of other bandwidth sucking entertainment there is on offer. Divided into "web channels" such as music, sports, news and so on, this is the place to go if you can't get enough of your connection but don't want your furniture repossessed! - SS
Name of Site: ABC Broadband
URL:
www.abc.net.au/broadband
Load Time: Scorching
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: Real Player, Flash
Review: Yes that's right it's the ABC on demand! Now you can watch ABC news any time of day, listen to Rage while you work, or if you're a real technocrat, shut the kids up with Bananas in Pyjamas, Play School and Sesame Street, all from the comfort of your desktop. Unfortunately ABC Broadband appears to be confined to showing programmes that run daily on their totally free television channel, begging the question 'why would you waste your precious download quota here?' Still if you want a quick recheck of the news and you don't mind installing Real Player, then this site is worth scoping. - SS
Name of Site: NineMSN Broadband
URL:
sites.ninemsn.com.au/minisite/broadband
Load Time: Scorching
Ease of Navigation: Walk in the Park
Plug Ins Required: Flash, Windows Media Player
Review: The interesting and somewhat sad thing about broadband sites is that often they are nothing more than 'Point and Click TV', basically a selection of video clips catalogued up for you to choose and view. NineMSN is no different in this respect, presenting news, entertainment, travel and kids shows among others. While there are some really interesting things here (like the 'Sour Grapes' short film festival flicks), one does begin to wonder where all the imagination and possibilities have gone. Interaction's time has come. - SS
Name of Site: The Basement
URL:
www.thebasement.com.au
Load Time: Scorching
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: Flash, Windows Media Player, Quicktime
Review: The Basement is a small Sydney club renowned for hosting top performers in an intimate setting. Their website is a massive Telstra-funded enterprise that forms part of the BigPond Broadband showcase. It features a live video station with big name VJ's like Uncle Doug Mulray taking you through an eclectic selection of music and guests. There's also a shop, special offers, a library of live music clips and a chat room to get funky with other music aficionados. With major sponsors such as Apple, Fuji, Warner and the Rivkin Report spending the big bucks here, you should log on and enjoy this cash-guzzling venture while it's still alive! Better still, buy some videos and keep it alive yourself. - SS
Name of Site: MovieFlix
URL:
www.movieflix.com
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: Real Player, Windows Media player
Review: If you have a really comfortable chair, a good screen and a love of movies this may be the site for you. For the meagre price of US$5.95 you get access to hundreds of movies, documentaries, television show episodes and even commercials! Everything is catalogued into some thirty or so categories and is available in narrow or broadband (though I highly recommend you be using the latter!) and through a choice of either the Real or Windows Media players. Add to this some recommendations, interviews, film festivals, free 24x7 customer service and you've got a package that'll will have you questioning why you ever upgraded your old TV. - SS
Name of Site: ScreenBlast
URL:
www.screenblast.com
Load Time: Scorching
Ease of Navigation: Walk in the Park
Plug Ins Required: Flash
Review: Screenblast, which incidentally is a Sony project, is billed as an "end-to-end digital creativity solution". Love those buzz-phrases. What this appears to mean is that it's a site designed to help you create, enhance and share digital images, video and music. As a Screenblast member (costing US$50 a year) you get access to templates, lots of professional video, music and sound clips and effects, videos from Hollywood experts about creating special effects, 128mb of space to share your own content (be it pics, sounds or movies), a library of TechTV videos and plenty more! At last a site that is using your broadband connection for something other than watching TV! - SS
Name of Site: Click2Music
URL:
www.click2music.com.au
Load Time: Scorching
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: WindowsMediaPlayer
Review: If you're like me (and for your sake I hope you're not too much like me), you probably enjoy hearing the latest music, but don't always have time to stay in touch with what's hip. Enter Click2Music, where you can watch the most popular video clips, listen to new releases and help BMG Records market their music! With the usual news & gossip, ecards, skins and artist info thrown in, this is a slick package that can be automatically launched from your Windows Media Player through some kind of Microsoft-BMG partnership...ahhh yes the wonderful smell of multinational collusion. - SS
Name of Site: Apple Movie Trailers
URL:
www.apple.com/trailers
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Walk in the Park
Plug Ins Required: Quicktime
Review: The sad thing about watching movie previews is you know you are being manipulated - the rising volume, the flashing scenes, the calculated pulsations of noise, the flying words - you know all this and yet whether you admit it or not...you love it. I've met a lot of people who actually think watching previews is the best thing about going to the movies. If this sounds like your personality in a nutshell, then you are going to love Apple's movie trailer mega-site. It's a sickly commercial cocktail of marketing for Quicktime, Apple, Hollywood and the American way of life that'll leave you with so much drool on your shirt you'll be in danger of dehydrating. - SS
Name of Site: Broadcast Live
URL:
broadcast-live.com
Load Time: Scorching
Ease of Navigation: Walk in the Park
Plug Ins Required: None
Review: So you've just plugged into hyper-drive with your new 10Gb/ms connection, now you are ready to experience what the advert said you would. Slow down hare-brain, the tortoise that is Web development is still catching up. Once you get used to the 1995-style design of this site, you find an excellent starting point to put your connection through its paces. Links nicely organized to the world's consistent and constantly streaming media. A lot of it is still your low-band stuff, but it will stream so much nicer now. Music, news, international TV and sport turn your computer into, well... a television. Wow!! - SS
Name of Site: RedKarpet
URL:
redkarpet.tv
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: Flash, MediaPlayer, QuickTime
Review: One of the free bandwidth offerings from the lovely folks at Telstra and Beyond, provides a colourful and content-rich pop culture entertainment channel with an ever-changing roster of articles and features. Clinging onto the notion that the web is more suited to delivering content rather than involving the audience, the red carpet is laid out for the stars of the show, rather than the visitor, which could be a good thing. How many stars can this world hold? Stars gotta have an audience, don't they? By the grinning looks of the dudes and dudettes featured here, having your moment of glory is still a pretty worthwhile pursuit. - SS
Name of Site: ABC Broadband
URL:
www.abc.net.au/broadband
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: RealPlayer, Flash
Review: With all this new media, surely the ABC is now costing at least 9 cents a day? That extra cent has built a world-class Web zone in which the broadband department sits proudly at the vanguard. There are great slabs of on-air content available on demand, plus totally live and/or regularly updated bulletins on world news, technology, the environment and Bananas in Pyjamas. The multimedia army at ABC HQ are working overtime to keep it real and keep it happening. Let's give them 12 cents a day and see if they can't achieve world domination - it's getting close already. - SS
Name of Site: MovieFlix
URL:
www.movieflix.com
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: MediaPlayer, QuickTime
Review: This looks like the way the broadband revolution will head, if the old movie and TV houses have their way. Pay-per-view Internet. With an archive of over 2,500 shows, mostly the ones that no one wants to show on cable at the moment, like "Bride of the Gorilla", "Assault of the Killer Bimbos" and "Betty Boop in Blunderland". It's a great way to squeeze some revenue from the back catalogue and an even greater way to while away the hours avoiding the reality of your actual life. Some free snippets are available, so sign up and test the water before shifting in to classic movie overdrive. - SS
Name of Site: Broadband Choice
URL:
www.broadbandchoice.com.au
Load Time: Scorching
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: None
Review: The broadband scene, from a "services offered" perspective is changing faster than the cable guy can keep up. Packages, deals, bandwidth allowance tweaking, it's all about maximizing you perceived value, whilst ensuring the telcos register record profits month after month. This site is there to keep the consumer informed of the machinations of the broadband scene, the player, the movers and shakers and - most importantly for you - the latest deals and pricing guides. Join the discussion forums to compare service delivery with other speed freaks, and find out just exactly what that mind-blowing unlimited freedom package of ubiquity is limited to. - SS
Name of Site: Telstra BigPond Broadband
URL:
www.bigpond.com/broadband
Load Time: Scorching
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: None
Review: The mother of them all, our great behemoth of the networked world, is tailoring surfing to your needs, and offering, as it can (seeing as it owns the cables under the ground you walk on) free bandwidth channels for everyone. A range of cleverly tweaked deals for you, your grandmother and your 6 year old open up the world of broadband, and to kick off the experience, check out The Basement, Game Arena and about 20 AFL sites. Ok maybe grandma might have to pay for all the bandwidth she uses on worldknittingvideos.com, but your mates and your kid’s mates will be comforted to know they won't blow your monthly usage too much. Oh that's right, they want to download porn and MP3s (respectively) uh... time to upgrade the package deal! - SS
Name of Site: Shockwave
URL:
www.shockwave.com/sw/home
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: Flash, Shockwave Player, Shock Machine, QuickTime, MediaPlayer
Review: Macromedia are really pushing the Web forward with their amazing formats, Flash and Shockwave. Although they can do so much within narrowband, once you let the file sizes get up to super-megabyte levels, the synapse-zapping power really kicks in. Full on 3D gaming is coming to a browser near you, as are rich data applications, interactive multimedia presentations and an endless stream of hilarious cartoons. Check out the regular site-of-the day, the brand new funky games, and entire bodies of work being churned out by some of the hippest and cleverest creative houses on the planet. - SS
Name of Site: BrainPOP
URL:
www.brainpop.com
Load Time: Slow
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: Flash
Review: Kids brains are exploding the whole world over with the learning overload they are experiencing here. A great design, geared towards our school-age brethren, presents 300 flash movies teaching a wide range of concepts, from Pythagoras' Theorem to the Life Cycle of Stars. The movies are entertaining, funny, and amazingly enough - informative. Beats blowing peoples' brains out in DOOM or Wolfenstein. The movies can be licensed out onto your own Site, adding a deserved dollar value for the Brain Pop creators and content for your visitors. Currently BrainPOP is seen by 1.5 million kids and is featured on 14,000 Websites. Now that's Poppin’ my cortex's capillaries just thinkin' about it. - SS
Name of Site: Kanakaris.com
URL:
www.cinemapop.com
Load Time: Scorching
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: MediaPlayer
Review: It's subscription time and time to plug in to another unlimited supply of reruns straight to your desktop. A very reasonable monthly fee puts you in the running to not only get all nostalgic about The Beverley Hillbillies, but an opportunity to get great discounts on current movies and DVDs. This value-added subscription site lets you push your bandwidth even further by including a video dating feature, online book repository and a partner program where you get to sign up all your friends for fun and profit. It's all about the business model, and these guys are working on it real hard. By George I think they've nearly got it! - SS
Name of Site: endeavor
URL:
endeavor.tv
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Walk in the Park
Plug Ins Required: Flash, MediaPlayer, QuickTime
Review: One of the great things about being an established company like our very own Beyond International, is that you have the money, the people and the industry contacts to pretty much create and launch whatever you want. This is their broadband science and technology channel, available free to the world and even freer to Telstra customers who don't pay for the bandwidth. Slick design, easy navigation, professional and engaging and relevant content - what else did you expect? We are now actually "Beyond 2000" - this is their dream come true. - SS
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