Why bother?

March 19, 2009

So many people bug me and ask “Devon, why do you bother with all of this Web 2.0 stuff & Social Media?” and many times I can’t really tell them why. It’s like explaining why you should drive a Jeep if you don’t drive a Jeep. You just can’t. Well, today was the second event recently that answers the above question for me.

I use a free Web 2.0 app called Brightkite, which is essentially a website where you log your location. Yes, you tell the Internet where you are. Many people think this is creepy, and, yes, I have annoyed my followers when tweeting that I am here or there or home (to the point where Alan once tweeted back that he was in an airport, on the north side of the terminal, three seats from an 80yr old with blue hair… or something like that), but I like checking in. As with all good Web 2.0 apps, there’s a social side. So I checked in at bowling last week, and when using BrightKite if you and someone else check in at the same place, you can private message each other, send photos, etc… Well, a message popped up and said “Are you Devon from McClintock from like 6 years ago? It’s me XXX. I haven’t talked to you in ages!” Well, turns out a former colleague and I were in the same bowling alley and reconnected after all of this time. It’s not that I didn’t want him to find me (damn, just Google “Devon Christopher Adams” and read the pages), so it was cool to reconnect.

Then today something really made me excited. Recently I’ve been learning how cool Flickr is to search for images on ANYTHING you want! Anything. (Disclaimer: Some content is NOT PG, but you get a very large warning message first.) Donna and I have been talking about camping this weekend with Claire and Dante, the dog. I’d run Flickr image searches on several campgrounds that sound promising, and I like to use Flickr to do this because the community are people like me who take “real” photos rather than some boring picture taken by a Park Ranger who doesn’t care that I want to see shots of the fire ring, the shade trees, the ground consistency, etc… So, I’d been looking for stuff on Burnt Corral Campground along Apache Lake but nothing has ever come up, so I’ve been hesitant. Finally, today I search again. Now mind you, it’s March 18, 2009. Suddenly, in Flickr, “Burnt Corral” popped up with a note from “Hartono D” that said he and friends took their kids camping there the week or March 17, 2009. This means, they were in the VERY campsite YESTERDAY where I want to go! Claire, Donna and I immediately flipped through his photos and agreed that we are eager to give it a shot.

Without BrightKite, I wouldn’t've hooked up with Ty. Without Flickr (and all of us using it!) I may not have settled on going to this camp ground.

Posted in online, web2.0