Someone I met on the Internet went M.I.A. He recently turned up again, to explain he had been in a serious accident in which he suffered a life threatening injury. He wanted to let the people in our group know he was still around, but his priorities had definitely changed. His Internet business was no longer taking center stage. His life and his family were more important now.

For a long time I’ve pondered the Internet and how it has changed my life. I marveled at being able to type conversations to complete strangers via AOL in 1995. Back then, it was rare to use your real name. My name was “Dancing Thunder” and I loved it. For years I was affectionately addressed as “DT”. My mom joined an email list I belonged to, and even she referred to me as “DT”. She’s always been very cool.

Today, we don’t hide ourselves as much. Rather, we experiment with avatars and re-creations of ourselves in SecondLife. We may be a brand. Our identities may be closely blended with what we do, sell or write about. It’s as if we are one with our creation online. Off the Internet, we are a person. On the Internet, we are a book, website, company, blog or a forum.

Who really knows us, when we are a book or a brand? If someone were to quiz you by a name association game, what would you say jumps out at you as your first thought for people you only know from the Internet? Would it be something that person wants to be remembered for, if they are remembered at all?

What happens when someone we know only on the Internet dies?

Will we even hear about it?

Who will tell us about you and your fate?

Years ago, I had a new moderator who came on board to help at Cre8asiteforums. Not long after, after not hearing from her for a long time, her husband finally took the time to explain to me that she was in a bad accident. He had taken the liberty of handling her email and realized she was missed by us. He may not have known she was helping us.

Does everyone in your life know where you might be missed?

I often wonder about forums. Some have been around a very long time. I’ll never forget the shock of learning that Jim Wilson, of JimWorld and Virtual Promote had passed on suddenly. His popular forums continued on, shaky at first, with an emotionally devastated staff. I later was to have the benefit of one of them, Diane Vigil, come to spend several years helping Cre8asiteforums to grow. I like to think a small spark of his vibrant energy now lives on at Cre8asiteforums, thanks to her contributions there.

When we start something online, such as a blog, website or forums, we don’t often have any idea how long it will last. We don’t know how long we will want to do this thing we start. What if we want to quit? Some of my friends are doing this now. They have started things online and are now moving on. They just say goodbye and we are left with questions.

At Cre8asiteforums we sometimes get this question. “I want to start a forum. How do I get people to it?”

My question for them, that I never ask, is “Do you have any freaking idea what you’re getting yourself into?” Forums are a commitment, no different than parenting. It’s an every day job. No vacation. No holiday. Sometimes, little sleep. And, it’s a labor of love for most of them. Most forums are not revenue models.

When you create something that lives and breathes on the Internet, how many years do you expect it to live there? Will it outlast you? Will you get bored and leave it and if so, how do you pull the plug on yourself?

What do you leave behind nowadays?

A dozen years ago, no one would have thought that an obituary would have website URLS in it. Today, you can search on people and read what they wrote and find where they wrote it. Your pictures are on the Internet. So is a map to your house. And yet, if you were to suddenly disappear from forums where you post regularly, would someone think to ask what happened to you?

I’ve been asking questions like this because I’m noticing some things I don’t like about where the direction the Internet is going. There is an extreme presence of ego. There is an odd new permission that it’s acceptable to be unkind, even to people you know. Advertising is drawing in user generated content. Some of it is hilarious and amusing. Not all of it is about the product however. The incentive for user generated content is to be seen.

It’s as if everyone is so fed up with being invisible and unnoticed that they’ll resort to any kind of tactic to be recognized and validated.

If you think the Geico commercial cavemen are doing it for Geico, think again. It’s far cooler to be known as a caveman right now. Advertisers are not stupid. They love and appreciate human ego and especially, vanity and greed.

How did it happen that the Internet, which conveniently makes it possible for people from around the world able to talk to each other, has suddenly made everyone insignificant unless they do something spectacular online? You haven’t made it unless you have been Dugg, spoofed, videotaped, sued, or gossiped about online.

Do you want to be remembered for the video of you naked or photo of you doing something stupid with your friends or for the time you wrote something half-cocked in anger, posted it and were unable to take back your words?

On the Internet, you never really know for sure what anyone will do next, or if they will even be here tomorrow. I wonder how many give thought to how they want to be remembered. How many have plans in place for their web property if they meet a sudden demise?

I find myself thinking about the man whose life threatening injuries caused him to return to the physical world, to people he can see and talk to in person.

I question the connections we make online and the differences they may be from those we make in our personal lives off-line. While saying goodbye to a search engine marketing friend recently, he kissed my cheek as we hugged our farewells. I can’t tell you what that meant to me. It was a surprise gesture and not one I’m used to because the majority of people I correspond with are people I type to everyday. I never hear their voices. Never shake their hand.

It just felt so good to feel a human connection.

Here is a gig some friends of mine are putting on that’s perfect for those who want their 15 minutes of fame and want to win an 50” Panasonic Plasma HDTV at the same time. All you have to do is be glued to the USA Super Bowl game on February 4, 2007 and have a knack for football game commentary.

Buttercast is running the contest. They say,

“This year we want to hear fresh, new voices doing commentary during the Big Game.”

Buttercast is offering several prizes for some original user-generated content for the big game this Sunday (Colts vs. Bears). They’re asking people to record themselves calling the 2nd quarter. Then they’ll gather them all and pick the winner. You can be as silly as you want.
The website states:

“Your commentary for the ENTIRE 2nd Quarter of the Big Game. This includes commercials. Talk over them, make fun of them, we don’t care.”

I think this is a perfect gig for certain social media communities, whose members are quite experienced in the art of commentary or recording themselves.

If so, you’re not alone. Three of the current top discussions at Cre8asiteforums are on the topic of web page resolution. It’s hard to ignore a vibe that strong. Browser resolution remains a web designer’s dilemma. How do you know what the right choice to make is?

Explore:

1152×864 On 17″ Monitor Going Too Far?

“I know w3schools.com says a lot of people are on this resolution but it does not specify the correlation to monitor size.”

800×600 Resolution - Do People Still Use This?

“After 20+ years of continuous computer use, the eyes just aren’t as good as they used to be. We design all our clients’ sites to be scalable so that even the 15% or so on 800×600 can view the site the way it was intended.

It will be interesting to see whether over time more or fewer people will migrate to this screen resolution as avid Internet user generations X and Y get older.”

At What Point Can I Design For 1024*768 ?, 15%, 10%, 5%, 1%, 0% of visitors using 800*600

At what point would it be acceptable to save on resources and ignore (well, not optimise for) the 800*600 visitors?”

A Response

Someone from SEMPO read my blog and my concern that perhaps nobody was interested in receiving scholarship money from Cre8asiteforums. Since the members of that forum chose SEMPO to receive some of the money we allocated for education, we weren’t sure what to make of the lack of response.

Perhaps the fault is mine and I shouldn’t have relied on the Internet to make contact. Rather, I should have called. However, I wasn’t sure whom to contact or whom to address. In any case, a volunteer from SEMPO has stepped in to help, and I’m looking forward to the supporting that organization.

Still no word from the usability folks at HFI.

My good friend, Bill Slawski was interviewed. Check out Interviewed at Web Analytics World

The ever humble (this is why I love him) Bill writes:

“Among other topics, we discussed Social Media Optimization and Social Bookmarking, the possible impact of some new patents from Google, the approach competitors to Google might use in taking on the Mountain View search giant, how Microsoft might gain ground on Google by reallocating some of their internal resources, and the little I know about Danny Sullivan’s Search Marketing Expo.”

Okay. There’s a lot to love about Bill. Being humble is just the tip of the iceberg.

Today I feel like being Ms. Dewey. Wait a minute, while I load first …

Education, or Not

Still no word from SEMPO or Human Factors Inc. on their having received money from Cre8asiteforums to support a student in financial need for their educational programs.

We’re not sure what to make of this. SEMPO, which represents the search engine marketing industry, has launched an educational program. HFI has had a Human Factors certification program for years. SEMPO’s website requires a form to make contact. There is no one person to contact or a way provided to do that on their contact page. HFI has no form, but supplies a variety of contact email addresses, but no name or title to address in correspondence. I will likely have to call, because either nobody received my form submission and email, or they think I’m spamming them.

How many spam emails do you get where someone is offering you free money?

New Spy Tool

For those link fanatics who like an army of tools to play with, here is a new one. It is called SEOSpyGlass. Not that SEO’s like to spy on folks or anything.

New Kid on the Block

Christine Churchill has a blog! SEMClubhouse features herself, as well as the rest of the gang at Key Relevance. Congratulations and welcome to the blog pool.

New Products for Everybody Except You

Despite the presence of the World Wide Web, if you live outside one of the bigger countries, you likely feel ignored. I know you do because of 10 Complaints From An International Shopper

Such as:

1. “Tell me up front if you don’t want me as a customer.”
2. “If you say you’ll send to Europe, I will assume you mean the geographic boundaries, not some constantly changing political border.”
3. “I guess all this shows that ecommerce site owners don’t do enough quality assurance/usability testing on their websites.”
4.”It never occurred to me that it would be a different Amazon!”

Women Rock

This was sent to me by my husband. He’s such a brown noser. The Rise of the College Woman.

…”30 years from now women will be making most of the money and they’ll be running society.”

And finally, thank you to Liana Evans. She not only writes about women in technology every week, but she also is a social energizer bunny who managed to get me out of the house for a local gathering of search engine marketing and web desgin folks in the Delaware Valley.

I had a blast.

I was waiting for the next round and it is here. My complaint about Digg has been dugg. Here is why, as stated by a digger, “He he he. He doesn’t want to be dugg. Let’s digg him to be funny.”

Thank you for the evidence and further proof that Digg traffic doesn’t stay on your stay on your site long enough to actually read it. As their comments illustrate, the purpose of digging Kim Krause Berg again, is solely to be mean spirited and poke fun. And I have little choice to tolerate this “social media engine” abuse because, as Danny Sullivan wrote earlier this week, tapping into these players helps you indirectly.”

I’m looking forward to those quality links many of my friends have promised will certainly come, because there’s a tropical island I fully intend to move to with all the millions I make from the conversions.

Sadly, Tamar, the hint you dropped about my not being male didn’t get past their slick radar. Do you think it matters that all this marketing and attention about me or this blog is accurate?

Yep. That’s what I thought too.