It's funny that watching a cat freak out about some water, stroke a dolphin with its paw or get into a bag can have so many of us addicted to YouTube for hours (OK days). In fact it's a little worrying that many of us would happily watch an animal baby do things than an actual human baby. Anyways, fear not that you've spent more time interacting with kitten videos this year than with your colleagues, because a study in Japan has found a number of actual real life benefits that come from baby animal photos, videos and memes.

The study entitled the 'Power of Kawaii' (FYI, kawaii means cute), which has been published in the U.S. journal Plos One, featured three different experiments conducted at Hiroshima University that all found we have higher levels of concentration after looking at photos of kittens and puppies. Take that bosses across the globe.

According to the Wall Street Journal, 132 students were divided into groups and given a range of tasks to complete (like playing the game Operation and number-based tasks) before and after being shown cute animal photos.

After cramming their eyes with crazy kittens and playful puppies, those playing Operation noticed their scores improved by 44% and those who were asked to complete sums noticed 16% more accuracy.

Obviously we should always take these kinds of studies with a pinch of salt (especially when they've been featured in the Mail Online), but knowing there might be some slight benefit to staring at a cat rolling around in a bag will still make us feel a little bit better about our lives as we approach a sold two hours of animal-related procrastination later in the day.

[Via Daily Mail Via Wall Street Journal]

If you can't get enough of gif-filled-goodness from the likes of the What Should We Call Me and When In London Town Tumblr blogs, then we challenge you to not fall down the never-ending moving image rabbit hole that is GIFCTRL.

GIFCTRL is a super clever Tumblr that displays a gif that you can then control with your mouse. Move it back and forth and back and forth, up and down, round and round then when you've had enough just click the screen for a new one.

Some of the gifs have been created and uploaded by users, others are funny scraps of pop culture, far too many are of Drake and the Kardashians and of course plenty are just plain weird. Enjoy.

[Via Anorak Digital]

If you're an internet regular then you'll know it's really hard to come across porn online. In fact any kind of sexual content, ads about gambling, tweets about One Direction and cat videos are few and far between at the moment. SEND MORE. PLEASE.

Therefore it makes complete sense that we'd need a search engine solely dedicated to adult content and today our prayers have been answered because ICM Registry is launching a kind of Google just for porn. But obviously it's got nothing to do with actual Google.

The search engine called Search.xxx has been created by ICM Registry, the guys who brought the .xxx domain names to the web, under the guise that'll it'll offer users a better experience and prevent malware because all .xxx sites are checked using McAfee technology daily. Of course that's all true, but it's also to make more people visit the .xxx websites the company worked its ass off to bring to the masses.

Stuart Lawley, ICM's CEO, believes the 21 million web pages indexed as part of Search.xxx will satisfy most people (unless you're into something really weird):

"It's porn, only porn, all porn!

"There's as much porn there as anyone would need, I'd imagine."

Wow working in porn really makes you enthusiastic about life, doesn't it? Maybe we're in the wrong profession... He goes on to big up Search.xxx by explaining it takes away the fuss from finding good porn and stops you getting caught out too, because there's no autocomplete like there is with Google, so search for your most weird, wonderful and dirty fantasies with no fear of repercussions:

"Porn is very personal [...] You may have been looking for Brazilian midget transsexuals, and you're sitting there at home with your kid or your wife saying, 'Let's go on a holiday to Brazil,' and the next thing, it's suggesting Brazilian midget transsexuals from your previous Google search history.

"A lot of customers found that they were so overwhelmed by what they were seeing, they just sort of snatched and grabbed any video that was there to get away from this madness [...] We have no ads, no videos, nothing on the search engine itself, so people can take a sort of calm and steady look at deciding what it is they want to select."

[Via Cnet Via Venture Beat]

Unless you've been hiding under a rock over the past few weeks you'll have listened to, laughed at and danced around to Gangnam Style, the music video featuring South Korean rapper Psy, that's taken the internet by storm.

More than 227 million people have viewed the video now, but according to Mashable today it's broken a Guinness World Record for the "Most likes on YouTube" with 2,141,758 ad counting. As you'd expect Justin Bieber's Baby racked up more than a million, as did Adele's Rolling in the Deep, but Psy and his incredible brand of K-Pop has well and truly blown them out of the water now.

Dan Barrett, the Guinness World Records Community Manager, said:

"Having been the 'Have you seen this?!' video of the last two months across the web, it's great to be able to award a record for this tremendously popular video. In years past it was unthinkable that something would be viewed a hundred million times, and now "Gangnam Style" has achieved more than twice this figure in just three months on YouTube. PSY - your certificate is waiting here at our office, come pick it up any time!"

[Via Mashable]

Ever since the world went crazy for Fifty Shades of Grey, its dirty sex scenes and terrible TERRIBLE metaphors for naughty bits, a range of parody TV shows, songs, eBooks and Twitter accounts have cropped up to take the mickey out of the saucy trilogy.

However, the most popular parody Twitter account has to be @50ShedsofGrey described as "erotica for the not-too-modern male", which tweets about the dark, twisted and sordid relationship between a man and his shed.

Some of our favourite tweets include:

She knelt before me on the shed floor and tugged gently then harder until finally it came. I moaned with pleasure, 'Now for the other boot.'

She gazed up at me wide-eyed from the shed floor and bit her lip seductively. Unfortunately it was her top lip so she looked like a piranha.

Well now the Fifty Sheds of Grey phenomenon is about to take the real world by storm (or just act as a silly novelty present), as it's been released as a hardback book.

We were lucky enough to be sent a surprise copy in the post and can tell you it's as laugh out loud funny and absolutely ridiculous as you'd expect.

You can get your hands on Fifty Sheds of Grey from the 27th September from Amazon as a hardback book, which will set you back a rather pricey £9.99, or as an Ebook for 99p.

The super cool print company and business card specialists over at Moo are all set to buy up equally cool home page creator Flavors.me, so they can ensure we have the best possible visual identity both online and offline.

London-based Moo allows you to print all kinds of things for you or your business, like stickers, labels and quirky accessories, but it's most popular for its quick and customisable business card service, whether you're looking for something professional, glossy or a fun mini card. On the other hand, Flavors.me is solely an online service, which allows you to create really great looking home pages and customise pretty much every element of it.

They may seem like rather different entities, but given they're both so focused on making you look the best you can both online and offline, in many ways it's a match made in self promotion heaven. Richard Moross, the Founder and CEO of Moo explained the purchase:

"As we look to the future of personal and professional identity, MOO is excited about building closer ties between print and the web, helping better-connect customers¹ virtual and physical worlds through smart objects and online identities. The Flavors product is key to this strategy, beautifully complimenting MOO's design-led approach, and providing us with an existing platform from which to build our future digital vision."

This isn't the first time Moo has brought the online world offline through it's products, back in January the company set up a service to turn your Facebook timeline into a real business card.

According to a press release from Moo, Flavors.me will initially sit alongside the website's current suite of physical products, business cards, postcards, greeting cards, etc, as a standalone product, but in the future the two businesses are set to become much more closely aligned.

We just received an email from Flavors.me today too, because we're such big fans and all have an account here at Shiny Media HQ, and the company were quick to assure users, in their own quirky, funny way, that the service is only set to get better:

"But don't worry -- we're not going to get all weird and start bossing you about. Just think of us as your mom's new husband. The kind that buys you a car, obviously -- not the kind that makes you call him dad (nobody likes that guy)."

We're excited to see what Moo and Flavors can do together and of course how awesome they can make us sound in the future...

Pop sensation, entrepreneur, eccentric dresser and Mother Monster Lady Gaga has revealed on her social network LittleMonsters.com that she'll be releasing her next album, Artpop, as a dedicated app packed full of awesome Gaga-esque content.

The Mother Monster wrote about the thinking behind the app in a status update over on LittleMonsters.com:

"The most major way to fully immerse yourself in ARTPOP is through the APP. ARTPOP will be released as an IPAD, iPhone, mobile and computer compatible application (WORLD) that is completely interactive with chats, films for every song, extra music, content, gaga inspired games, fashion updates, magazines and more in the works! I will also be able to upload new things to the APP all the time, the same way I upload to Twitter and LM.com. You inspired me to create something that communicated with images, because YOU do, YOU communicate with me and each other with .gifs and pictures, and artwork, graphics ALL DAY 24/7 YOU'RE an ARTPOP generation."

Oh yeah, she sounds totally insane, but we love her passion and clearly so do her army of Little Monsters.

[Via Little Monsters]

It's been a while since we got excited about an infographic, they're just all so dull and "so what" now, right? But today we stumbled across The Internet Map, a kind of a dynamic online map, which shows you websites in relation to one another. Think of it as a much more sensible We Feel Fine for sites and traffic figures rather than emotions.

Each circle (or should we say node) is a website, but unlike an actual map they're not presented in relation to one another, here's a little explanation from the guys at The Internet Map:

"The Internet map is a bi-dimensional presentation of links between websites on the Internet. Every site is a circle on the map, and its size is determined by website traffic, the larger the amount of traffic, the bigger the circle. Users' switching between websites forms links, and the stronger the link, the closer the websites tend to arrange themselves to each other."

There's more in-depth research about how the map was created over on the site's about page, but we're more excited about the fact we found Shiny Shiny. HIGH FIVE.

[Via Swiss Miss]

Remember the super creepy Take This Lollipop Facebook viral video, which made you think some crazy stalker was on the way round to your house to kill you or eat you? Uh it makes us shudder just to think about it. Well now the guy behind it, Jason Zada, has teamed up with Linkin Park to create a similar kind of online video for the band's latest single.

Just like Take This Lollipop, the Linkin Park video over at lostintheecho.com requires you to sign into Facebook, grant the site temporary access to your account and then your content is incorporated into the video. Clever, huh?

Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park told Mashable:

"I think we're at a turning point for the "music video." The whole idea of doing a static 3:30 movie or performance to sit underneath a song feels kind of boring,

"I never put personal pictures up on it, so ... half of the pictures were of dogs, landscapes, and random silly things. It was hilarious to watch this video pull those pictures and see the characters in the video break down in tears over a picture of a ham sandwich."

Now admittedly it does seem a little cheesy, but it's good to see Linkin Park experiment with something a bit different (did anyone else forget they were still knocking around?) and we welcome anything new from the guy behind Take This Lollipop.

Try it for yourself at lostintheecho.com.

[Via All Facebook Via Mashable]

One of our favourite online cat stars, Maru, has made the transition from YouTube sensation to a fully fledged advert spot for the Uniqlo shop over in San Francisco. Awh he's all grown up, let's all shed a little tear.

Unsurprisingly Maru spends the 30 second ad strutting around, jumping into boxes and looking super cute for the camera. We wonder how long it'll take for him to give Boo a run for his money and bring out his own range of books and stuffed toys...

[Via Jezebel Via Buzzfeed]

They put a smile on everyone's face regardless of age, race or gender, they bring offices together with laughter and brighten up even the darkest of days. Hell, we're even pretty sure one day they'll cure diseases and resolve conflicts too. Have you guessed what we're talking about yet? Well, CAT VIDEOS, that's what.

Whether you're a die-hard Maru fan, prefer the ones that shriek things, show everyone you meet the one with the ninja moves or could never get sick of Nyan Cat, there's a video out there that we're pretty sure would appeal to everyone on the planet. So given how widespread the cat-video-love is right now, it's hardly surprising that a number of them have been showcased at The Minneapolis Art Museum this month. That's right, no longer just confined to the deep, dark depths of the internet, cat videos are on display at a real life museum.

The cat videos make up part of #catvidfest, a celebration of all things feline on the web and includes some of our all time favourites, like the one that barks out of the window and ninja cat.

View the full list of everything from #catvidfest on YouTube.

[Via Jezebel Via CBS News]

Tumblr has always been a pretty impressive source of comedy gold, but recently we've unearthed some ABSOLUTE GEMS, let's have a round of applause and big Mexican wave for When in London Town, What Should We Call Me... Maybe? and Suri's Burn Book.

The past few weeks has been no exception, so here are a few Tumblr blogs you should be following, including Children With Swag, Dogshaming and Dads are the Original Hipsters. Goodbye afternoon, hello geeky LOLZ.

If you're not in a relationship it can be hard to find a decent girl or guy who isn't a complete scumbag or just incredibly boring, but we want you to be able to have lots of sex and run through meadows and send each other cute emails and all of that other stuff that happens when you're in a relationship. So we're here to help you find that special someone online...

Now there's still quite a big stigma attached to online dating (we blame slasher films), but if you're based here in the UK it's becoming more and more popular, with sites like Guardian Soulmates, Plenty of Fish and eHarmony really taking off and attracting all kinds of different people who are now all happily doing the sex and meadows and emails thing. Of course there'll be crazies lurking on them like there is everywhere else, but these sites are considered some of the most popular and "successful" at sorting people out with dates, dinners and all that other jazz.

However, we decided to venture into the weird and wonderful world of online dating, just in case you happen to be looking for something a little more niche...

[This was one of those lists we pulled together with the help of Twitter, so here's a little shout out to everyone who contributed, thanks guys @ananyah @teriTECHno, @rich_trenholm, @bluevespertine, @timhoang]

Just days after learning that crafty site Etsy has banned most body parts, firearms and poison from being sold by its users, eBay has announced that mystical sellers (also known as con artists) will no longer be able to flog spells, curses and potions on the online marketplace.

eBay has recently made a lot of changes to its 2012 Fall Seller Update and some of the most noticeable and just plain strange additions are all to do with the weird and wonderful world of the occult. According to the update, these items have been added to the site's prohibited list:

"Spells; curses; hexing; conjuring; magic; prayers; blessing services; magic potions; healing and healing sessions."

As crazy as it may seem that some people are browsing the internet for ways to curse people and cast spells, a quick peek at the comments under Mashable's story about the changes earlier today shows that some people are pretty angry at eBay for discriminating against Wiccan or Pagan religions. However, these items have actually been added to the prohibited list to protect buyers from anything that doesn't have concrete claims, as you'll see that "advice" and "work from home business" information is also on there and last time we checked that had nothing to do with being a witch... or wizard... or warlock... or... oh we give up.

[Via Mashable and eBay Image via Samcatchesides]

We haven't been excited about the launch of a new social network since Google+ (you know, the one with the dancing circles), but over the past week we've heard a lot of interesting things about the subscription-based alternative to Twitter, App.net, which is currently in development...

So what is it?

On its home page right now App.net is described as a "real-time social feed without the ads", so just think Twitter but for those who get irritated by some of the annoying things it does and want a platform that's dedicated to them and not advertisers:

"We believe that advertising-supported social services are so consistently and inextricably at odds with the interests of users and developers that something must be done."

Awh what a lovely little online utopia.

However, it's not just about creating a nicer online space for users, but after growing concerns about Twitter's relationship with developers the App.net creators aim to keep the platform as open as possible.

The catch with App.net is that unfortunately you do have to pay for it because, let's face it, the creators have to bring money in somehow. You can sign up now to become a member for a year and it'll cost you $50, although there's no indication of whether that number will get higher or lower in the future.

But is it actually going to be any good?

Well it's hard to say given the fact it's not properly up and running yet (and obviously because we don't have $50 to just throw into the online ether right now), but regardless of whether you think App.net is genius or ridiculous it seems plenty of others are really buying into the idea of a fairly ad free online space. This morning The Next Web reported that the creators have already surpassed their funding goal of $500,000 and big tech names as well as celebrities have already signed up, such as Stephen Fry.

The main problem with the idea behind App.net is that we wonder how many people out there (other than social media geeks, of course) REALLY care about an ad or two in their Twitter feed or the fact an app has been granted access to their account? The answer is probably very few, so whether App.net will be successful among anyone but techies in the future remains to be seen, but we guess that's kind of the whole point...

Find out more about App.net.

So bad news this Monday morning guys, not only has the Olympics come to a close, but it turns out you can no longer sell whatever the hell you want on Etsy anymore. That's right, even if you've got some homemade poison, a spare skull laying around or a tank of lighter fluid that you were hoping to flog on the crafty site, it's unfortunately now all prohibited.

Etsy has updated its DOs and DON'Ts of Etsy page, adding a whole host of weird and wonderful things to the Prohibited list. The most recent additions include body parts, tobacco and other smokeable products, drugs, drug paraphernalia and hazardous materials, like poison, mercury and fireworks.

Now if you thought Etsy was just dedicated to rubbish embroidered cushions and friendship bracelets you'll probably be a little shocked to find that a select bunch of nut-jobs were actually selling the above regularly on the site.

However, don't fret internet because it turns out only a few body parts have been added to the Prohibited list, like organs, skeletons and bodily fluids, but you can still get hold of crafty crap made from teeth, nails and hair, like this delightful human hair doily with embroidery, beads and finger nails that was featured over on Regretsy recently.

[Via Etsy Image via Regretsy]

Well aren't we lucky, we've got a Pinterest dedicated solely to adult content over at Sex.com and this week a version of Kickstarter has been launched that allows us to bid on all kinds of porn-related projects.

Offbeatr (yeah, what a name...) is just like the popular crowd funding website except you're not bidding to make 434,583,745 iPhone stands a reality, but instead you're offering help and dollar for all kinds of adult entertainment products, projects, movies and books.

Launched earlier this week, the site works by allowing users to submit their projects, which are then moderated by a team to ensure nothing too illegal or 8mm gets through. Once a project is approved it's added to the site and anyone over 18 can waste away their hard earned cash on anything from budding porn studios to new fantasy sex games and all kinds of werd and wonderful things in between.

As Digital Trends points out, despite the nature of the content on Offbeatr it's all rather serious, the site is obviously NSFW but it's not filled with super explicit ads or projects that look like spam, just genuine (and sometimes quite clever and intriguing) ideas about how to better the adult entertainment industry.

[Via Digital Trends]

Social bookmarking and visual inspiration site Pinterest has finally stopped being so damn secretive after opening its doors to the public for the first time.

It's always been fairly easy to get hold of a Pinterest invite, but now there's no waiting around to become a user, you just fill in your details and get pinning. The public opening comes at the same time as a fancy new redesign, which includes pins that flip around once you're done with them and a range of new categories.

Despite the fact many have been questioning whether Pinterest really has any long term value, its user base continues to grow by the day and dedicated pinners are still going strong attaching anything from examples of great architecture to cupcake decoration ideas to their boards, so don't expect it to die a slow death anytime soon.

However, many big Pinterest fans are worried that opening the platform up to the public may lower the overall quality of the content. Sure it wasn't hard to get your hands on an invite before, you only had to fill in a form or ask a friend for one, but it's still a valid concern that with no barrier to entry things might take a turn for the worse...

[Via Pinterest]

As I spend so much of my life online (in a totally cool and awesome way, of course) I've somehow become the font of knowledge whenever a relative or friend or colleague needs to know the best place to search for one of those or the easiest way to find that on a budget.

However, a question I'd never been asked before until last week was "I have 10 minutes to spare online, what should I do?" The thing is so many of us spend the majority of our lives frantically dashing around, finishing this and worrying about that, so we rarely get a chance to think about what we want to do and how we REALLY want to spend our time online.

So today the Shiny Shiny team are urging you to take ten minutes all to yourself today and spend it laughing at silly blogs, creating a landing page or just being inspired by some incredible motivational speakers.

1. Laugh away those ten minutes with absolutely no remorse

Yes you could spend the next ten minutes doing productive things, being inspired and discovering hidden gems online OR you could just find some of the funniest blogs the interwebz has to offer. Check out 5 Laugh out loud Tumblr blogs to follow or Our top sites for geeky afternoon LOLZ and online fun.

2. Be inspired by TED talks

We know that watching TED talks, talking about TED talks, tweeting about TED talks, obsessing over TED talks and believing you're going to change the world because of TED talks has become a huge cliché among media/online types, but there are some really awesome ones out there that can teach you to be more productive, unveil a whole new field of research to you or just offer you some tough love and tell you to man up and stop worrying about things.

Check out: www.ted.com/talks

3. Create an about.me or flavors.me page

Creating a personal home page may seem a little bit self obsessive, but in actual fact it's a great way to showcase your work, collect all of your social networks together in one place and if all else fails it gives you something to write in that blank "URL" field on forms and applications when you don't already have a blog.

If you're looking for a super simple solution you can knock up in ten minutes, then our favourite websites for super-awesome-home-page-creations are about.me and flavors.me. You'll be given a customisable URL (i.e. flavors.me/YOURLOVELYNAMEHERE), a page to play around with and enough fonts and colours to make your eyes jump up and down with joy.

Check out about.me and flavors.me.

4. Write to someone you only know through the internet and tell them they're great

Pick someone you admire online, whether it be an actual celebrity, your favourite blogger or just someone who tweets funny stuff and tell them (privately) how much you admire what they do. Oh yeah, it's embarrassingly cheesy, it sounds like something that would only happen in a rubbish rom-com, but you know what, it's really nice and just think about the smile it'll put on their face and the LOVELY KARMA it'll bring you.

5. Sort through your bookmarks/pins/starred feeds

Wherever you happen to save content online, have a good sort through, assess what's relevant and delete anything that isn't. You might find some hidden gems as you browse through or just realise everything you've been waiting to read is completely useless and clogging up your bookmarks.

6. Get rid of Facebook and Twitter 'friends' that wind you up/annoy you/just aren't relevant

How many times have you heard someone say they hate Facebook or Twitter? Really they don't hate the social network (not usually anyway), but they're sick of friends and followers who post boring or irrelevant or offensive or just plain stupid updates.

I think we've all gotten over the fact we get unfriended and unfollowed from time to time, so just bite the bullet and get rid of anyone who writes anything that causes you to sigh or shout at the computer screen.

Yes it sounds a bit harsh, but you'll start to find more interesting content, connect with the people that matter and see Twitter and Facebook as useful rather than just time suckers.

7. Back-up your important things

This is one of those tedious but completely necessary tasks, like taking out insurance or making sure you have your keys when you leave the house every morning. As secure and amazing as you think your laptop or computer is, there's always a chance one day it'll implode and take all of your important documents and work with it, so spend ten minutes signing up to a cloud service like Dropbox and transferring vital things across to your shiny new account.

If you're a blogger then you might want to be super sensible and back up your content too, there are lots of options available depending on your blogging platform of choice, from paid-for services to free plug-ins.

8. Try a new social network or app

It can be really hard to keep up with all of the new social networks, online services and apps that are released everyday, but how about picking one that looks interesting and giving it a whirl for the next ten minutes.

If you're looking for a new way to save content, sign up to Pearltrees or if you want a simple and intuitive to-do list app then download Clear.

9. Decide who your favourite online animal is

If you've been constantly stressing out this week (please bear in mind it's only Tuesday) you might want to spend your ten minutes doing something completely pointless, like deciding which internet animal celebrity is your favourite. Check out our list of Top 10 internet animals of 2011 to get you started and in case you were wondering, we're die-hard Maru fans.

10. Unsubscribe from silly voucher emails and irritating updates you don't need

Now admittedly this is a very dull one, but chances are if you've bought anything online you've been forced into getting a newsletter at some point or receiving updates from social networks or discount websites or any other kind of online rubbish.

Instead of just deleting these annoying emails every morning and working yourself into a rage, force yourself to spend a few minutes unsubscribing from them. Just start small and change permissions on one or two things, it'll stop you panicking so much when you first get to work and keep your inbox nice and streamlined.

Related: 10 Social media resolutions

[Image via Mike Licht]

Throughout the past week of Olympic sports, races and emotional medal ceremonies it's been really interesting to log onto Twitter and see how your friends are reacting to the events on screen. Well now a new project called Emoto aims to capture all of our emotions from Twitter about the games and turn them into dynamic data visualisations that move about in real time. Bear with us here...

The Emoto project was designed by Mortiz Stefaner, a data artist based in Germany, but it was funded by the British Arts Council to offer viewers a different angle of the events over the next few weeks.

If you visit the project now over at www.emoto2012.org you'll see a series of topics and coloured ribbons, which are visualisations of sentiment. Tiffany O'Callaghan from New Scientist explains how it works:

"The system scans English-language Twitter accounts for tweets about the games and sifts for words that convey emotion, revealing some interesting insights about the way the world's biggest sporting event is driving public conversation. In the swarm visualisations, for a given subject, the total number of tweets is indicated by a dotted grey circle. Whether feelings are positive or negative about the topic is shown by the size of the coloured ribbons that extend out of the circle."

It's no surprise that Stefaner was influenced by innovative, real time human emotion project We Feel Fine, which has been literally bouncing around the web tracking our emotions for a few years now. However, Emoto is unique in that it attempts to visualise emotions around just the one particular event.

Although some question whether there are issues with sentiment analysis, including sarcasm or regional words, the Emoto project is a really fascinating accompaniment to the Olympics.

[Via New Scientist]