Webscape

By Kate Russell Click Webscape-r

Kate Russell gives us her latest selection of the best sites on the World Wide Web.

constantcomedy.com

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

British site constantcomedy.com does exactly what it says in the URL - streaming comedy videos by both professionals and amateurs in a kind of never ending talent contest.

No need to sign up to view, but if you do, you get to vote off videos you do not like and if enough people agree with you the performer gets the axe and the next funny man or woman takes centre screen.

You can choose the videos you think you will like by category on the left-hand side or just browse through them in the video section.

Again - signing up means you can upload your own funny video for people to watch and vote on.

If you like your laughs stand-up style this is the site for you - and while there are some absolutely tragic performances - it is not hard to find some truly funny people.

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gnuTrade.com

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Now have you ever fancied yourself as a stockbroker. What if I said you could even make a bit of cash without risking your own - if you can tell your bulls from your bears.

GnuTrade.com offers a new take for those wanting to play the world's stockmarkets. The idea is to guess whether an index like the Dow or the FTSE will go up or down. You can bet with real or play money.

Past performance is beautifully illustrated with graphics that relay market movements in an easy to understand way.

Market reports are available on the site too so you can do some homework before placing a bet.

Now everyone will have their own take on whether gambling on market movements is a good or bad thing but even if you do not want to risk a penny it is possible to make money here.

That is because the site allows people who bet with cash to back players who are playing for fun. If you attract a real money player to back you and you make a profit - then some of that real cash gets sent to your account.

But however you use the site remember: past stock performance is not an indicator of future stock performance.

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We feel Fine

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

We feel Fine is a bit of a misnomer as the site aims to collect the feelings of the world's bloggers and social networkers by scanning such sites for words like sad, happy, in love and well, any human emotion really.

The 'Open We Feel Fine' tab launches the application which downloads a tiny applet or program needed to view the site onto your computer. Enter a world of moving dots which begin to collect around your cursor so you can click on them - each one represents a person's feelings based on a recent blog.

At the bottom left you can change the way this information is shown - the Montage button shows pictures, the Weather button splits up the mini blogs by what the weather was like when they were written.

At the top of the page you can define the sort of blogs you want to include - by the authors' age, gender, location and other criteria.

So where do all these feelings come from? Well, the website scans the pages of many public blogs and photo sites like MySpace and Flickr. When it sees the words "I feel," it copies a short section of the entry for the site.

Because this program knows how these sites are constructed it can glean other information like location and age of the writer and where they live.

By cross-referencing the location and time a blog was written with global weather information it can make - or at least try to make - some kind of connection between the weather and how people are generally feeling.

The gallery option has some great photos and allows you to go to the original page where the blog was posted if you find something that interests you.

It is utter madness but great fun and inescapably addictive whether or not you feel it has any great value.

But even if We Feel Fine does not interest you - it is worth knowing what other sites out there are doing with your information when you create a blog or social networking page.

If what you post is in the public domain, aggregator sites like these are completely above-board.

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