Browser: hot from taking down his decorations, Sutherland Lyall bags last year's blogs.

Sooo Web2

It's been an interesting year for browsers, so a bit of a round-up is in order. The internet is no less prone to meaningless jargon than architecture. The big jargon this year has been Web2 or, according to another camp, Web 2.0. Yes, it's got that bad. The word was coined, according to hip US publishers and conferenceers O'Reilly, at a brainstorming session between O'Reilly, Dale Dougherty and MediaLive International. It started off as a vague term for the post-dot com internet but has taken an uncanny hold on the minds of millions. They use it for whatever comes to mind as in 'That's sooo Web2'. Here is an O'Reilly take on its new goldmine: http://tinyurl.com/743r5. It's also useful for detecting Web2-bollocks from the IT department.

Envoi 

It has also been the year of the blog. More accurately, a number of architectural blogs have reached a sort of maturity in reasonable numbers. And one, PartIV, has closed down. Possibly. The overly modest Norman Blogster's explanation is that having just qualified, he is leaving architecture. He says in his envoi, 'other things can make me happier. I think the lack of vitriol is ... reflected in the poorer quality of scribbles'. Not true about either vitriol or quality. I suspect he's found Lurve. We will miss him a lot although there is a hint that one Luke Warm might continue it. All these noms de plumes. Worryingly his site says I promised something if he continued the blog to November. I can't remember what. Probably that eating the hat thing.

Blig blag blog

The enduring architectural blog of the year is Kansas architect Eric Morehouse's Eyecandy at http://eyecandy-webcandy.blogspot.com whence comes a weekly architectural website url from anywhere in the world. Even if not every site is a world-beater it's great. Also great is the absence of commentary. It's there waiting in your email box 'for', as he prefaces each new url, 'your visual pleasure ...' Then there is Architecture at http://architectureyp.blogspot.com/. Based in the US it is pretty cosmopolitan in its coverage. The issue I'm looking at has a piece by Charlie Jencks, an interview with OMA's Ole Scheeren and a long, long strip of new buildings from all over plus a link to the website of the Aberdeen Society of Architects which, alas, is not all that interesting. Interactive Architecture dot Org is at www.interactivearchitecture.org and has a great blend of design, art and architecture. From New York comes A Daily Dose of Architecture at http://archidose.blogspot.com. Probably from London is the more desultory http://b2architecture.blogspot.com/. But it's sharp. And although it might in the end not technically be a blog there was Graffiti Research Lab. In our earlier piece it introduced the magnetic Throwie for doing non-destructive graffiti on steel cladding. The site is essential for understanding the potential in-service life of buildings: http://graffitiresearchlab.com.

The big mouth

Editor Paul Finch has started up a blog on the arplus website. I'm not going to say it's Finch at his entertaining, chatty best and gives the skinny on the inner doings of the architectural illuminati because you'd say, in a paraphrase of the immortal words of Mandy Rice Davis, I would say that wouldn't I? Take a look yourselves. Just type arplus in your browser box, and click on 'Architectural Review'. There it is at the top of the right-hand column. Enjoy.

Scotland alert

Blogs and any one-man specialist websites involve treading a lonely path. Their blog/webmasters do it because it's a bit of a blast and because it won't do anyone harm if they decide Antarctic rock climbing is more interesting and so close down their site/blog. But what do you do if your sites have around a thousand pages getting maybe 50 million hits a year like Adrian Welsh and his two terrific sites www.glasgowarchitecture.co.uk. and the older Edinburgh version, www.edinburgharchitecture.co.uk. No, there's no obvious prospect of Walsh and his wife Isabelle Lomholt throwing in the towel despite what new me-too commercial rival ArchitectureScotland might hope. But you wish there was some kind of Nirvana where tired out web/bloggists could retire for ever among fountains and divan-spread banqueting rooms.

And so to bed

And here is a reward for yourself after the Xmas break when you swore that those dark ruminations about possible fates for your aged relatives-in-law--and your wife's children by her first marriage would never cross your mind ever again. It is Pixelsumo at www.pixelsumo.com. It's a smorgasbord of multidisciplinary pleasures.

Stop the presses

In one of those scary coincidences, just after I filed this Norman Blogster sent me this site. Probably a parting shot. It's the new and terrific model for the successful architectural site. It belongs to Oakland-based Ace Architectsand it's at www.aceland.com.

Sutherland Lyall is at [e-mail]