Most of you know about the run-away success of blogs like PostSecret, which just won the 2007 Weblog Award for Best Blog, but I wanted to share two of my favorite user-generated successes that are under the radar that exemplify the humanness of web 2.0 - isn't that what this is all about?
Suzi Blu's How To Keep an Art Journal (YouTube Series)
My rejuvenated artistic side and my love for Moleskine notebooks has brought me to Suzi Blu's endearing web series. Along with keeping a weekly vlog video, she has a little mini-series called "How to Keep an Art Journal" that was inspiring and charming. Suzi is sweet and very encouraging, and I found her own artwork and mentality about art and life inspiring. Check out her website (where she links to her eBay auctions of her original works) and her blog.
To-Do List (Blog)
Similar to PostSecret in that viewers can submit their own work, this blog features scanned hand-written to-do lists about anything and everything from groceries to "should I ask her out?" pros and cons. The submitted works are addicting to read (usually a marker of a web success) and now the creator of the blog (hosted by Blogger and featured in their "Blogs of Note"), Sasha Cagen, has published a collection of these lists in a book a-la-PostSecret. Sasha has also been featured on NBC as a result of her work.
Who are the web 2.0 stars in your eyes?
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Super Cool: User-Generated Greatness = Suzi Blu + To-Do List blog
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
University of Florida / John Kerry Incident: Is Seeing Believing?
I'm sure you all know the story already about the University of Florida senior student Andrew Meyer and what happened during a Q&A session with John Kerry at the school.
But whether or not you believe the police officers' reactions was warranted or not, what's interesting from a social media perspective is how fast this story has blazed across the interwebs via the YouTube video that shows what went down (there's many videos posted from different angles, check them out).
When you watch the video, his screams of pain and cries for help makes you immediately think "omg police brutality!!," but really - do these videos tell the whole story of what transpired before the tapes started rolling?? Apparently many students on the Facebook page calling for a protest believe that despite the sympathy the video creates, Mr. Mayer had broken the rules established about going over time and using profanity.
"What these videos leave out is that Meyer was going to be arrested BEFORE he even asked the question, it had nothing to do with freedom of speech. I was at the forum, and when he was informed that the time allotted for Senator Kerry to answer questions was over, he refused to leave the microphone and the UPD began to attempt to escort him out. He began screaming at Senator Kerry, who, trying to avoid a scene, said he would answer Meyer's question. Even if Meyer had behaved like a perfect gentleman when he asked his question, and not used profanity and raved like a lunatic, he STILL would have been arrested for his prior actions, which were not caught on tape.On Andrew Meyer's personal website, his friends posted all the links to the media stories as well as link to the Facebook event to protest against police brutality.
Meyer's arrest was completely justified, as can be noted from the applause when he was being escorted out." -Kenny Maskell (UF), on the Facebook event protest page
So whether or not you think the actions taken by the police were justified, this is a strong reminder of the power of social media and the Internet to influence public opinion and spread stories and events in a matter of hours.
9/19: Update: Thank goodness the blogosphere is picking up on this.
