Using the Internet: 4 Cool Pieces of Web Design

If you're anything like me, you have no idea how to use the Internet. You go online, open Facebook or Twitter, have a quick browse, then open another tab and go to your favorite website that isn't Facebook or Twitter. You might take in some news or even alleviate some boredom on Wikipedia, but you rarely wander off the beaten track.

Even if you spend their whole day online, bouncing from blog to landing page to blog to social media account, your interaction with the web is the same. You click, read a blog, watch a video and then click somewhere else. But the Internet has the power to be so much more than a collection of text and video content.

Thankfully, there are people out there who understand that and have created some interesting funny and downright cool pieces of web design for our entertainment. Here are some of our favorite different ways to use the Internet.

Transformers on Your Street

We've set some basic criteria for these examples. They have to be interactive, technically impressive but simple to use, and just a bit cool. This one fulfills each of these criteria, but it's definitely in the geeky category of cool.

Transformers on Your Street is a web app created to promote the latest Transformers game, based on the Shia LaBeouf movies. The app combines a pre-rendered video of two Transformers fighting with Google Street View to create a video of those transformers fighting on your street. The video can then be shared through Facebook and Twitter, with the game getting a little promotion for their trouble. All you have to do is enter your address.

The Internet Map

Remember the feeling you got the first time you saw a map of the world and realized how vast the world around us really is? This site gives you that same feeling, online. The map acts as a photo shot of the Internet at the end of 2011, it maps 350,000 websites across 196 countries. So it's not a complete Internet map, but it's still incredible to navigate.

You can search for a particular website, or just drag, zoom and scroll around and see what you find. The websites' locations are color-coded and their relative size is based on the level of traffic they receive. All of that information is brought together in a beautiful star map design. It's just a fascinatingly pleasant place to be.

Animade Like

This page is a great demonstration of what happens when people take skills from one discipline and apply it to another. In this case, animation studio Animade used their animation skills to create a great piece of online marketing.

The page is the epitome of simplicity. They want you to like their Facebook page, if you do that you get a little animated reward.

Zerg Rush

Google has a history of creating these little Easter Egg treats. Their Doodles have become a common site on the homepage and they've expanded these to take in games like the Olympic events they created for the London games.

This is a bit like that, but different, we don't want to ruin the surprise so just follow these instructions. Type 'zerg rush' into Google, don't press enter or click anywhere. Just type it in, wait five seconds and start shooting.

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