I just saw the above tweeted by @DarenBBC – a guy I follow with interest on the website I find myself more and more distracted by every day. It reminded me that I’ve wanted to blog about it for a while.
I enjoy using twitter for a variety of reasons – it’s a great way to get answers to questions, find out other people’s perspectives on a variety of issues, get news, find out about events and be entertained. But more impressive than any of those things is the fact I’ve used it to find jobs for friends without even really trying or thinking about it too hard.
Firstly I recommended a friend for some freelance web design work. @CTrouper was looking for someone to help with design on her most excellent Subtext magazine. I simply tweeted a link to one of Kerry’s websites and then a few months later I saw this on facebook:
Kerry Turner: I made another website. This time for a magazine. Bed now.
Low and behold the website she then linked to was indeed Subtext. I had no idea she’d been working on it until that point and she had no idea it was me who had recommended her until I messaged her after that status update.
The second twitter work opportunity (well volunteering actually) is much more inline with my ‘wider world web’ beliefs. Two friends had been looking for opportunities in Nepal for absolutely months and then one day out of the blue a link to some teaching opportunities turned up in my twitter feed so I sent them to the couple (on facebook of course). A few months later I was out celebrating their departure at a restaurant. It was only at the end of the evening that one of them gave me a hug and told me that the job they were taking was thanks to the link I sent them. Brilliant.
A colleague and I were recently talking about online personality and the value of assigning a name to a product or service. We were contemplating the potential for this on TheSite.org and Lifetracks.com.
In the world of advice and support Jo@samaritans.org is an obvious decent example. Sending emails about difficult and confidential issues to a friendly address rather than a generic info inbox seems to really work.
I also like Emma from the clothes swapping website The Big Wardrobe. When I get ‘her’ emails they’re written in a genuinely warm and engaging way with a real voice rather than corporate breeze with a name tagged on for effect. Also helps that the website works really well and has provided me with some lovely swaps.
So now for the poor example. Friends Reunited. Not only do Sally’s emails have no character, they’re also just plain creepy at times. “I saw you were online recently…” What, you’re following my online activity? You’ve just admitted to stalking me. OK, so I work for websites – I know the score, but you really don’t gain anything from telling me that.
To be fair, I used to like Friends Reunited’s emails – they were genuinely a sweet reminder of the website that nearly made it among the top dogs. A chance to see if there was anyone there who hadn’t realised the existence of facebook (as if). But Sally pulled the plug on my nostalgia with one simple click. Unsubscribe.
One of my most weird and wonderful internet-to-real world experiences came full circle and back to the web this weekend.
I’m a big fan of fancy dress, especially homemade outfits. It all started in 2001 when I studied at Juniata College in Pennsylvania, USA. Some friends and I spent a week browsing thrift stores and designed super hero outfits for Halloween. They may have been rough around the edges, but I haven’t seen better Super girl, Wonder Woman or She-rah get-up since .
Since that year I’ve thrown together costumes to dress up as Starsky and Hutch, Jordan aka Katie Price, (probably best I don’t post photo evidence of that) Mickey Mouse and most recently Mrs Incredible. Quite a few of these aren’t online as they pre-date my digital camera days – you can probably tell the image to the left is scanned. These days however, online albums are ubiquitous and when it comes to cheesy fancy dress snaps I won’t deny I’m a show-off.
Fast forward to about a month ago. A school friend was having a chat to a designer friend about the launch of his new t-shirt range and they were trying to think of friends who would fit the bill to model for it. They inevitably started browsing friends online albums to see if they could find anyone suitable. When the looked through my albums the designer saw the two images below.
Mickey Mouse
After that he was satisfied that I should be the personal to model his T-shirts and so it’s me you see in the shots on the dog house website.
Mrs Incredible
Dating websites look like fun and I know people who’ve had a really good time on them. I’m also secretly quite pleased I haven’t ever felt the need to use one. What strikes me as more interesting is people who’ve found love through the internet by chance based on building frienships with people without an initial intention to date them.
My sister, for instance, met her husband to be through facebook. He saw her on a friend’s profile and added her. They then got chatting on facebook chat and decided to meet for coffee. They got to know each other and the rest is history.
David and Ellie met through TheSite.org discussion boards. They became friends, met up and are now married. We make a point of discouraging people from using TheSite.org to pick people up, but time and time again people have formed lasting relationships organically.
The internet can also make long distance relationships easier to maintain and help people make their affections known if they’re feeling a bit shy about it.
Sadly, the internet also provides a way for people to conduct affairs more easily and cyber-flirting, although it might seem like harmless fun, can be really upsetting. Although let’s not use this as an excuse for a relationship going bad. If people are having affairs online, it’s not because of the medium, there’s got to be something else wrong.
Lou and Ken
I’m going to India this summer for a wedding and I can almost say for certain that wouldn’t be happening without the internet. How did it occur? A wonderful opportunity has arrived after a very simple facebook message.
In Autumn 2007 I became homeless and lived in a friends spare room for about three months. I needed to find someone to live with and so sent a message on mass to 20 facebook friends. A few people came back with various suggestions, but the one that stood out was from a school friend who’s buddy, Dev, was moving across the country. We met for coffee, realised we both worked in the same part of the city and started house hunting together. To cut a long story short, Dev and I moved into a dive of a flat with no internet connection, TV or phone line. For this reason we spent six months chatting, bonding and realising we were made for each other – on a purely platonic level of course. We soon admitted that our shoe box wasn’t going to cut it in the big smoke when another friend moved from India to the UK. We embraced Dev’s friend into the mix and found a bigger place for the three of us. Now I’ve met lots of other friends through them and have been invited to India for a wedding.
Our shoe box
