Best of the Year: The Web

This was the year I said goodbye to a number of sites that became so advertising laden they took forever to load on my browser. But that's the worst of the web, isn't it?

I'm not sure why the best of everything is coming in twos this year, but today is another twofer. And the award for the best of the year in World Wide Web activity goes to Lifehacker and Andrew's Blog.

I've been a casual visitor to Lifehacker for sometime. But 2008 was the year it topped my rss reader. Perhaps I became afraid that without checking it everyday I'd be overwhelmed by the number of posts. No, that's not it. What I discovered was that there is something useful every single day, and I don't want to miss it!

Lifehacker bills itself as "tips and downloads for getting things done." That's about as dead-on a description as I can provide. While technology is a major factor in what Lifehacker provides--and this is a particularly Mac-friendly site--the information goes well beyond the technical. The site is filled with information on do-it-yourself projects, on how-to's. The information on computers is also amazingly useful.

In this year, I downloaded a free program to protect my passwords and private information, learned what supplies needed to go into a basic cleaning kit, how to repurpose my old iPod, essential and discounted apps for my iPhone and so much more. Lifehacker became the essential site for finding cool things that would help me out and would make me cool because I would share them.

And now for something completely different....

Something is happening in the University of Michigan's Musical Theater program. The MT program has a fine reputation and has produced some of our finest actors working in New York. Lately, some of the more recent grads from the program have taken things to the Web. Besides a few random videos I came across on YouTube, my first in-depth contact was with the fantastic Web series The Battery's Down, the musical story of a struggling actor in New York. You can see all of season one's episodes online, and season two starts March 1, 2009.

One of the Battery's Down regulars is Andrew Keenan-Bolger, a UMich graduate with long career for a 23 year old. He was Jojo in Seussical, along with a bunch of other New York credits prior to his UMich days. He's currently in The Grinch in its Boston engagement. Keenan-Bolger maintains Andrew's Blog, a compelling video blog that provides an intimate look into the life of a young musical theater actor.



Andrew's Blog is part video blog, part performance art, part performance capture, lots of camp and a whole lot of fun. Keenan-Bolger is charismatic and open. His vlog is a little offbeat, which makes it more interesting. I love the fact that you're never sure whether it's Andrew Keenan-Bolger or Andrew Keenan-Bolger playing the role of Andrew Keenan-Bolger. Here's a sample of Andrew's Blog from his visit to Rosie's Cruise last April.



Keenan-Bolger has a well-defined web presence. From the inspired URL of his blog: http://keenanblogger.blogspot.com/ to his creative, if a little busy, MySpace page and the UMichMT YouTube Channel, Keenan-Bolger is fearless in getting his life onto the Web.

For a well-rounded virtual life, Keenan-Bolger provides a varied presence rich in both content and form. And for that, he gets my vote for the best of the year.