Once again, thanks to Amanda Congdon at RB, I am (like) totally diggin on the internet. This web site www.thanksno.com is GENIUS. Check it out. Did you check it? Okay, I cannot believe how many people I want to send this to! I mean, these are people I love, people I respect, but also people who insist on sending me the dumbest e-mails ever!
How do you tell them that you don't want to see this stuff, or you don't want your e-mail given out. I've even done it. I sent out an e-vite and one of my friends doesn't trust e-vite. Of course, e-vite has a process for people like him and lets them choose to take their name off the e-vite list, but what about all those pics of cute kittens I get from Grandma Nancy?
Thanksno.com is a great answer.
But thats not what I am excited about. I am excited about what it points out. The internet, blogs, on-demand TV, Google, Digg, etc. are cool because they allow us to choose. Choice could just be the most important human value. Take this blog. I could send this stuff out in an e-mail to all my friends but that wouldn't give them a choice. With a blog I can bitch and moan and meander and lament and expund all I want. If you want to listen, you can. You can even subscribe via RSS. But more importantly, if you don't want to listen you don't have to.
Think about news sites. On CNN or whatever you don't have to wait through the entire newscast to hear the weather. Or shopping. You don't have to be pestered by salespeople or look at products you don't want in order to buy what you want. You can even look all you want and then leave without buying anything. You can CHOOSE.
Take porn for example. Internet porn is like a huge boulevard chock-full of #$@!! and %#@!! that lights up the night sky. And its not just one street. Its millions of streets, each tailored to fit the desires of everyone. BUT, heres the beauty part, if you don't want to go there you don't have to!!
Everyday we are bombarded with messages. We drive by the all adult video on our way to work. We have to listen to 5 stories about police shootings, a high-school senior who is deaf and blind and is helping senior citezens do their grocery shopping, and the latest dangers of METH in order to hear the forecast. We have to listen to our friends, family, boss, etc. go on and on about the finer points of mechanical engineering or knitting.
What we want is choice and the internet gives us that choice. Kevin Rose on Diggnation said something interesting about the success of Google vs. Yahoo. Yahoo fills its homepage with ads and news stories. And even though I chose those stories, or at least what I want to know about, I can't stand Yahoo. Google's homepage poses a simple question: What do you want to know? Nothing else. Just a simple question.
Thanks for choosing to read this.
