And so, the race is on.

Last night the Contagious Media Showdown began - a three week competition to see who can create the most compelling piece of online drivel aimed at people who are bored at work and have have nothing better to do than to send to a friend. All the sites that have entered into the competition have been created with the exclusive purpose of the short, sharp, shock - getting as much attention in as short amount of time as possible.

And so to help in their plan of world domination, I'm going to be running a semi-regular feature over the course of the competition highlighting the best of the entrants, and giving a running assessment of their progress.

Let's kick off with what must be a front runner - Crying While Eating, a site featuring short clips of people - well, crying while eating, naturally.

Totally pointless, strangely compelling, and perfect for this type of competition. Just a few hours ago CWE was ranked as #3 in the ratings, but I notice that they've just been Boing-Boinged, which means the traffic today is going to go through the roof.

All the rest of the entries are here, but don't go look - it'll spoil the surprise of all my upcoming blog posts :)

View our continuing coverage of the Contagious Media Showdown here