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You know, once in a while I start to think that I actually have some influence on the entire internet. I was reading today's issue of NTK, when around a third of the way down I saw this blurb: ""this week's lazy web designers (311,000 at time of going to press): http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Welcome+to+Adobe+GoLive+%22" For those of you who read my crap, this is the exact same thing (not quite word for word) that I posted here on 11111001111, and over in my Backwash column. In both, I say pretty much this: "Some people don't know how to change the default titles on their webpages. Welcome to Adobe GoLive - around 278,000 of them." Now, could this really be a "great minds think alike" moment, or is this direct evidence that the things I do actually have some impact via the world wide web? I've seen the microcosmic effects, in the participants and the websites themselves, but how far does this reach go? Fark has seen it's memes expand out into the internet community with immense power, but that's a site which gets half a million pageviews a day. Technically, the internet is a single unit - microcosm & macrocosm aren't exactly applicable, since there's no size. People measure the size of the internet in terms of users & pageviews, but that may not be the most important thing. A local Fargo "download coupons" website put up ads claiming thousands of daily pageviews -- but what sort of influence do they have? Minimal. Nothing that website does affects anything else on the internet, so it's actual size is miniscule. If my tiny blog with less than a hundred pageviews a day can get an international crossection of readers (NTK is a UK listserv) to think about something, then my site has a significatly larger macrocosmic impact. So, let this be a lesson to all of you who do not have a website. Without one, you have no impact whatsoever. I've said it before: Rotating content is very important so go sign up with a service like Diaryland or Blogger and start putting thoughts into readable format. If you think computers are intimidating, or "ooh, Derek's a webdesigner, I'll have to learn how to program," you'd be wrong. Design is secondary to content. If a two-sentence comment I made gets quoted in an altculture webzine mailing list barely six weeks later, then anyone can have the same realm of influence. You just need to put it out there for all to see.
I heard from NTK, and they
said the URL was submitted by
a reader. So, not only did
NTK approve, but someone else
thought it good enough to
submit! Gear! --Derek, 5/11/2002 09:15:30
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