Web Monitor
A celebration of the riches of the web.
Today in Web Monitor; how cat-suits can be good for feminism, the downfall the blogosphere predicted and Yoko Ono's own version of evolution.
• Actress that judo in a cat-suit - necessary for her 60s TV role in the Avengers - wasn't taken well by men:
"Whenever I was out socialising, I was told by the men who had a few drinks in them that they were resentful. For the first time they were jealous of a woman. They took it as the last barrier. I think people back then thought women will never be equal to men because they haven't got the strength. However, if somebody can do judo they only need the strength of the person attacking them - so we really put the lid on that argument."
• From
"About to start the Saturday puzzle. Happy"
to
"I'm packing. We're all stunned, sad".
These are the the editor of Conde Nast's Gourmet Magazine. The change in mood comes from the news that Conde Nast are closing her magazine along with Cookie, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride.
Not so stunned are the people at , a blog dedicated to logging the folding of magazines. They in September:
"Forget the elimination of petty perks like replenishing the pencil supply. Does the world need two foodie magazines and three bridal magazines, which are all down by huge numbers of ad pages, published by the same company? Gourmet (-42%), Bon Appetit (-31.9%), Brides, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride (-39.2%) are all very likely suspects to join the Reaper."
Conde Nast and General Motors are failing for the same reason:
"In theory, it makes a lot of sense for a business to encourage internal competition between divisions. But it can easily backfire...
As long as the markets boomed, managers at Conde Nast and General Motors could ignore wasteful overlapping and duplication of effort. But then came the crash. The damage to the magazine sector has been almost as catastrophic as it has been to the car industry."
Another site which predicted the fall, a competition on which Conde Nast titles will die next. Conde Nast employees are especially encouraged to enter.
• that we will get smaller and smaller. The evidence? Well, why would anyone make gadgets so small?
"Like the dinosaurs, we realised that it's too dangerous
to be so large. So we kept shrinking ourselves to what we are now.
We might get even smaller. I see the sign in the engineers making
smaller gadgets, smaller and smaller. Pretty soon, our fingers will be
too large to operate them. So what are we doing? I trust in the
human wisdom. We are incredibly intelligent beings. So we might
know something without thinking that we know."