Today I was sent a link by my friend Ed Sabo who owns
Natural Awakenings Magazine, Houston edition. Ed has been talking with me about doing some branding work that will solidify his initial efforts and really allow him to leverage what he has and realize his full vision.
He sent me this
link to watch a video about a 17-year-old girl who has built a million dollar business by creating visually appealing backgrounds for teens who want to personalize their My Space page. She started when she was 14. She gives the backgrounds away free and because over 800,000 teens (mostly girls) hit her site daily she gets a seven-figure income from her advertisers.
After watching that 3 minute "news" story on Yahoo's People of the Web (a site I had never heard of) I spent a couple of hours watching more videos and learning about other everyday people who are using the power of the web to communicate with each other.
Two hours?? You may be wondering if I have become a couch potato.
But there is a reason for my fascination. I just finished reading
The Long Tail by
Chris Anderson, CEO of Wired Magazine. In it, Chris helps to describe what we intuitively know - that the internet is changing everything - in a simple and understandable way. He shows how it is affecting the economy and why our treasured "cultural sameness" has always been a kind of myth and how the web is revealing the true diversity of our interests. More on that in aonther post. The point here is that Yahoo's People of the Web is a perfect illustration of what he was writing about.
It serves as an aggregator and recommender/filter to allow people like me (who don't want to spend excessive hours on the web) to hook into at least some of the better wild-web content being posted at overwhelming rates. And in "reporting" about how these everyday people are using the internet to share their creative ideas Yahoo is multiplying their reach. When describing this to my clients, I use the term exponentiating. Yahoo's People on the Web is an "exponentiator."
So what did I discover at People on the Web? Well I like to dance so when I saw clip entitled "World Wide Dance Off" I clicked.
I was fascinated by the story of
Matt Harding, who decided to quit his job after saving up enough money to travel around the world. While traveling in Viet Nam, Matt's friend suggested they video him doing this little dance he'd done since childhood. It's goofy and kind of amusing to watch him gleefully dancing - very badly. He ended up filming himself dancing at every stop, edited it into a video on his return, posted it to his blog and to You Tube and got famous. He's on his fourth trip around the world now with a sponsor helping him. He has a cool site and has created an awesome brand for himself. Matt has a
2008 version out now that has sparked amazing interest and good will as has been notice now by the MSM (mainstream media) and teh morning talk shows, but also by other thoughtful web
observers.
I like art, so I clicked on
Art in Real Time. It is truly AMAZING what this guy is doing with art and performance - and then combining them with web video. He connected people and their stories in one piece bringing them together into a self-portrait he filmed and streamed online over 6 days.
After a bit more bouncing around, I found three video stories on a single page about people using the web to allow everyday folks to help other everyday folks around the world. Each effort focuses on a different need - fun/quality of life, health, and economic prosperity - of people in some of the world's poorest regions. And each makes it possible for someone like me to by-pass the slow and wasteful government aid efforts to get into the game of aid provider myself. The title for this post, Love Wins, came from the last of the three videos featured on
this page. Definitely worth watching all three!
The point of this post, what I most want to share today, is how Yahoo's site
People of the Web was yet another way for me to see the POWER of this medium to allow us to connect with each other, to move each other into action, and to join together with others who are interested in the same things we are. Since my interest lies in finding and implementing ways to make life for the collective human family better, I am inspired by what I see. I am amazed at the creativity and zeal of our youth who really get the power of the web in ways my 40-year-old brain may never.
Yes, there's a lot of junk out there.
People on the Web had it's share of time wasting junk. It's also true that much of what people are doing on the web is just for entertainment, novelty. Personally, I think that's great because we need to laugh more and we need creativity. And of course one must admit that blogs and websites are also used to connect people with malicious interests as well as for more productive and helpful endeavors.
But as the words from a sticker screamed out to me in that last video I saw, I believe now more than ever:
LOVE WINS!And the internet, intended or not, is helping that cause.
I love the Teachings of Abraham in the book "Ask and it is Given." 