Cute Overload was a blog featuring commentary, photos and videos related to various aspects of cuteness in animals. The site was created by Megan Frost. It ranked #803 in the most influential English blog list compiled by Technorati, [1] #16,387 in Alexa's "World Traffic Ranking" [2] and, according to Quantcast, it received an average of 33,700 visits per day in 2011. [3] On January 18, 2016, the site announced it was closing down. [4]
Cute Overload won the 2006 Webby Awards "People's Voice" honors in the blog category, [5] [6] the 2007 Bloggies for Best American Weblog, [7] and the 2009 "Weblog Awards" winner as "Best Topical Weblog". [8]
The website features "Rules of Cuteness", an evolving list of characteristics of cuteness, several of which include the following:
A blog is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page. In the 2000s, blogs were often the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often covered a single subject or topic. In the 2010s, "multi-author blogs" (MABs) emerged, featuring the writing of multiple authors and sometimes professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, advocacy groups, and similar institutions account for an increasing quantity of blog traffic. The rise of Twitter and other "microblogging" systems helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into the news media. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
Technorati was a search engine and a publisher advertising platform that served as an advertising solution for the thousands of websites in its network. Technorati launched its ad network in 2008, and at one time was one of the largest ad networks reaching more than 100 million unique visitors per month. The name Technorati was a portmanteau of the words technology and literati, which evokes the notion of technological intelligence or intellectualism.
Anil Dash is an American technology executive, entrepreneur, Prince scholar and writer. He is the Head of Glitch and VP of Developer Experience at Fastly.
Dave Sifry is an American software entrepreneur and blogosphere icon known for founding Technorati in 2004, formerly a leading blog search engine. He also lectures widely on wireless technology and policy, weblogs, and open source software.
Mental Floss is an online magazine and its related American digital, print, and e-commerce media company focused on millennials. It is owned by Minute Media and based in New York City, United States. mentalfloss.com, which presents facts, puzzles, and trivia with a humorous tone, draws 20.5 million unique users a month. Its YouTube channel produces three weekly series and has 1.3 million subscribers. In October 2015, Mental Floss teamed with the National Geographic Channel for its first televised special, Brain Surgery Live with mental_floss, the first brain surgery ever broadcast live.
Alex Steffen is an American futurist and advocate of 'bright green environmentalism' who writes and speaks about sustainability and the future of the planet. He emphasizes the importance of imagining persuasive, positive possible futures: "It's literally true that we can't build what we can't imagine,... The fact that we haven't compellingly imagined a thriving, dynamic, sustainable world is a major reason we don't already live in one."
Weblogs, Inc. was a blog network that published content on a variety of subjects, including tech news, video games, automobiles, and pop culture. At one point, the network had as many as 90 blogs, although the vast majority of its traffic could be attributed to a smaller number of breakout titles, as was typical of most large-scale successful blog networks of the mid-2000s. Popular blogs included Engadget, Autoblog, TUAW, Joystiq, Luxist, Slashfood, Cinematical, TV Squad, Download Squad, Blogging Baby, Gadling, AdJab, and Blogging Stocks.
Worldchanging was a nonprofit online publisher that operated from 2003 to 2010. Its strapline was A bright green future. It published newsletters and books about sustainability, bright green environmentalism, futurism and social innovation.
Crooks and Liars is a progressive news blog focusing on political events founded by John Amato.
Lifehacker is a weblog about life hacks and software that launched on 31 January 2005. The site was originally launched by Gawker Media and is owned by Ziff Davis. The blog posts cover a wide range of topics including Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, Linux programs, iOS, and Android, as well as general life tips and tricks. The website is known for its fast-paced release schedule from its inception, with content being published every half hour all day long.
The Soxaholix is a comic-based blog published by pseudonymous Hart Brachen for Boston Red Sox fans to discuss the team and other sports-related news. Occasionally during the television season the blog also discusses the television drama Lost. The site began just prior to the 2004 baseball season. The author references many different sources of classic literature, modern literature, television shows, popular culture, and internet culture through the characters' dialogue. The setting for the comic revolves around a group of office co-workers in Boston and each daily strip focuses on the conversation of two of the characters in a back-and-forth manner similar to the comic Get your war on.
Cheng Yan Yan Wendy, better known by her pseudonym Xiaxue, is a Singaporean blogger and online television personality who writes about her life, fashion and local issues in a provocative style. Her main blog, which attracts about 50,000 readers daily, has won prestigious blog awards and earned her sponsorship deals, as well as stints as a columnist and TV show host, but some of her posts have sparked national controversies. She was previously married to American engineer Mike Sayre and they have one child.
ScienceBlogs is an invitation-only blog network and virtual community that operated initially for almost 12 years, from 2006 to 2017. It was created by Seed Media Group to enhance public understanding of science. Each blog had its own theme, speciality and author(s) and was not subject to editorial control. Authors included active scientists working in industry, universities and medical schools as well as college professors, physicians, professional writers, graduate students, and post-docs. On 24 January 2015, 19 of the blogs had seen posting in the past month. 11 of these had been on ScienceBlogs since 2006. ScienceBlogs shut down at the end of October 2017. In late August 2018, the website's front page displayed a notice suggesting it was about to become active once again.
Quantcast is an American technology company, founded in 2006, that specializes in AI-driven real-time advertising, audience insights and measurement. It has offices in the United States, Canada, Australia, Singapore, United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden.
/Film, also spelled Slashfilm, is a blog that covers movie news, reviews, interviews, and trailers. It was founded by Peter Sciretta in August 2005.
Cake Wrecks is an entertainment website featuring user-submitted photographs of professionally made cakes that are unintentionally humorous or strange in appearance. Founded in May 2008, inspiration for the confectionery-themed photoblog began when site-master Jen Yates received an e-mail that included a photo of a sheet cake, decorated with a customer's verbatim request: "best wishes suzanne, under neat that, we will miss you".
Watts Up With That? (WUWT) is a blog promoting climate change denial that was created by Anthony Watts in 2006.
The Black Weblog Awards was an online awards event which recognizes bloggers of African-American descent for their contributions in blogging, video blogging, and podcasting. The Black Weblog Awards started in 2005 with 11 categories, and grew to include 36 categories. Former Black Weblog Award winners include blogger and radio host B. Scott, comedian and YouTube personality Elon James White, comedian, television host, and New York Times best-selling author Baratunde Thurston, LGBT activist and media personality Keith Boykin, hip-hop artists D-Nice and Kanye West, musician and DJ Questlove, and model/media personality Tyra Banks. Other Black Weblog Award winners have also appeared in traditional media outlets, such as The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and NPR.
Jennifer Lawson is an American journalist, author and blogger.
Kevin Marks is on the Advisory Council of the Open Rights Group, a UK-based Digital Rights campaigning organization and is an Open Web Advocate. He is one of the founders of Microformats.