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A celebration of the riches of the web.

Web Monitor answers the big questions - who knitters are waging war against, who in your office should be promoted and why flash mobs make a grown man cry. Make sure you share your favourite links from across the web by sending them via the comment box.

• Web Monitor wishes community blog a happy 10th birthday, making it an active OAP when considering the conversion rate from human years to blog years. One recent gem from the blog was on the messy rivalry between the online knitting and crocheting communities:

"For the uninitiated/uncrafty, here's an . [sic], a documentary, explores the animus between the Needles and the Hooks. When to mention the 'c' word, she gets many comments from knitting readers who, while stressing that they have nothing against crochet, just don't want to see it in their backyard magazine. When Kim Werker, editor of Interweave Crochet, about crocheting she gets even more negative feedback. Part of the problem seems to be that while knitters contend with the 'old lady's pastime' stereotype, the much more negative 'granny square and toilet paper cosy' stigma."

• While knitters and crochet gangs were waging online warfare, it seems some, who you'd think would be down with the kids, weren't even on the internet yet. Namely James Palumbo, the founder of London's Ministry of Sound club who about his media habits:

"I only discovered the internet two years ago and it has transformed my business thinking, particularly in researching brands."

• at the age old paradox in large organisations - promotion to incompetence. This is the idea that the people who perform best at one level of an organisation tend to be promoted up and up until they are so incompetent they are not promoted anymore.
Now the Review reports that to alternately promote first the most competent and then the least competent individuals or to promote individuals at random both improve, or at least do not diminish, the efficiency of an organisation.

• Web Monitor continues its quest to find literary references in specialist press. Last week, Web Monitor mentioned the motor magazine . James Bell from the Grocer wrote in to say while our request for Dickens in their next article couldn't be met, they would rise to the challenge instead with a Shakespeare reference in an . In Bell's words:

"Grocery's a profound industry, sometimes."

Now... how about Thomas Hardy in for next week?

• Flash mobs are emotional events it seems. Web Monitor previously mentioned the organiser of the Michael Jackson moon walking flash mob in the UK, his fear before the event:

"There's no way I'm about to moonwalk in public - the horror of that literally makes sweat drip from my armpits."

Now another grown man, to get to the bottom of why he gets teary every time he watches :

"There is something about people working together on something complicated without overt direction that seems to trigger profound feelings... Frankly an awful lot of management consultancy over the last few decades has been sold on the myth that life is that predictable... I think this is less and less easy to pull off these days as things get more complicated and setting people up with the skills, attitudes, and insights to deal with whatever happens next and collectively work, in their respective Flash Mobs, towards a positive outcome seems a far more robust approach to adopt."

Web Monitor would be interested to find out Semple's take on advertisers' adoption of flash mobs - mainly which dominated the before Michael Jackson's death.

• he not only organised a flash mob moonwalk but also set up a site for people to share their sick jokes about the news, which he found out isn't a big hitter with advertisers:

"It's a pig of a site because although there's apparently limitless demand for sick jokes, it's impossible to grow it as no advertiser will place their clients near it."

It seems Manuel is not the only satirist chasing after online advertising revenues. The , the satirical news service is moving from printed local editions which earn their money from classified ads to online advertising. Gawker accuses the Onion of selling out and prints a memo they say was sent to Onion staff:

"Saying no to advertisers whose desires don't exactly match your wishes is a losing game."

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