Recently by Joanna Geary

I've often wondered why so many organisations seem reluctant to embrace ways that the Internet makes it easier to get their messages out.

This is particularly the case when poor websites belonging to West Midland organisations make my job more complicated and time-consuming.

This has been the case recently and, after much frustration, I have decided it is time to name and shame.

As you can imagine, things are pretty busy at Birmingham Post Towers as we all gear up for the launch of the brand new Birmingham Post on Monday.

There has, unstandably, been much talk of changes to our print editon, but there also going to be a few tweaks and upgrades on the digital side too.

We hope the website will get a new coat of paint and there is also the new mobile site to look out for in the coming week.

However, whilst others are doing a fantastic job communicating the changes to our newspaper to our online community, my focus is telling our print readers about all the exciting things we are building up online.

So, over the past 24 hours (as those who follow my Twitter account might know), I've been putting together a list of things people might not know about the Post online.

It is supposed to target print readers who may have little or no knowledge of social media sites like Facebook, but may be curious enough to get involved.

It's not going to be an exhaustive "step-by-step" guide, just an introduction to what these online tools might do.

I've tried to make this as clear as possible, but things can always be improved. I'd be interested to know what you think!

Here are the words that Gordon Brown used most in his speech to the Labour Party conference in Manchester today:

I'm hoping you will indulge me in a quick "Look Mum, see what I made," moment:

This is a little device that can use our content but can be embedded on any website, blog, Facebook or iGoogle homepage.

It's commonly known as a widget and this one was produced using a natty free website called Sprout Builder.

In the run up to The Big Debate: Are our young leaders our green saviours?, Professor Richard Green - director of the Institute for Energy Research and Policy at the University of Birmingham - discusses the challenges faced by those which aim to keep energy supplies secure and limit the damage we do to the environment

Energy has been in the news a lot recently - price rises, climate change and power cuts have all featured, along with wind farms and nuclear power.

No consumer wants high energy prices, nobody wants to damage the environment, and no one wants to turn a switch and find that there's no power, but there are few decisions we can make about energy that do not run the risk of making one of these things worse.

Feeling puzzled by protons or bamboozled by bosons?

Well the Large Hadron Collider rap could help clear some of that confusion.

This has to be one of the most amazing things I have seen on the Internet for a while. Picture after picture of Birmingham citizens sporting hairstyles ranging from the surreal to the ridiculous are displayed on photo-sharing website Flickr.

But why?

Liam Byrne, MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Minister for the West Midlands, delivered a presentation to the Cabinet when it met in Birmingham's International Convention Centre today.

Above are the slides form his presentation.

Here is a slideshow of pictures of the Government's cabinet meeting in Birmingham taken from Downing Street's Flickr stream.

That's the question Marc Reeves decided to ask readers on micro-blogging service Twitter today:

The response? Well it was, rather predictably, lukewarm when it came to the PM.