I’ve been mulling the almost infra dig treatment that One Web Day received. Oh, there were a gaggle of Berkmanites, past and present, who touted it and seemed genuinely jolly about the prospect. David Isenberg rolled out a nice party in Vienna! But in general it didn’t seem to get the broad positive attention that you would expect a purely altruistic effort to receive. It’s been rolling toward us for a year or more, progressing merrily like a marble on a track. Why didn’t more people know about it? Why wasn’t there a broad celebration cutting across all socio-economic classes, all ages, breaking down gender barriers, banishing ethnic distinctions, just a Mardi Gras of whoop-tee-do with festive netizens around the globe all flushed with endorphins, smiling out of their eyes and open to a wealth of new webular experiences?
Naturally I blame myself.
What did I do besides slap a dorky sticker on my laptop and sort of nibble around the edges of the occasion? Why didn’t I get out there and promote it like a cure for cancer? I don’t know. I’m sorry. Maybe I was too tied up with my PhoneCon 2.0 efforts. I’ll try to do better next year.
Hi, Frank — we got nice coverage from the BBC, from CBC, from OhmyNews, from tech news reporters, and from bloggers in many corners of the world. There may still be news stories brewing. It was the first time, and it was a proof of concept. I think it will grow organically in ways that will surprise people.
There were a lot of celebrations in many different places that had nothing to do with Berkman.
This was a mostly unfunded effort, built by blogging and word of mouth. We’re trying to reach people who aren’t the digerati, and that’s hard to do without mainstream press. Next year you’ll see more.
The idea is to change minds about internet use, and to show how positive it is for ordinary people. I think we did quite a bit in that direction.
Susan
I thought about it a little, as the perkiness of the concept rubbed a few people the wrong way. For my baseline question, “Is anybody going to get hurt by this?”, the answer seems to be clearly “No”. So if it turned out to be somewhat insular and navel-gazing, well, what else is new? It seemed broadly focused, as opposed to the bubble-blowing events, and any self-promotion aspects seemed relatively benign (I can’t see someone building a huge powerbase as OWD promoter, compared to, e.g. “Web 2.0″ hypemaster). Yeah, there’s the Cool Kids Party aspect of it. Shrug. It’s not where the real deals are made, though indeed, you can see some of the cheerleaders on display. I think the undercurrent at discontent was like seeing the rich and famous at a charity ball. There’s nothing wrong with such events. But it’s not something people get enthused about if they aren’t society-page afficionados.
“We’re trying to reach people who aren’t the digerati, and that’s hard to do without mainstream press.”
Bollocks. Give people access to the damn net and they is all over it, naturally. This mainstream press shit is a backdoor attention grab for those poor selves who still envy the benefits of Glory in the mainstream. One Web Day sounds like yet another UN Offcially Sanctioned Day of Mock Honour acknowledging the plight of lepers or some such…look at all the good festering we’re doing over here…
Okay that’s over the top. But my point stands. PhoneCon, on the flip, is sick. (That’s sick in a good way, consulting suburban dictionary etc.) But it won’t be Big until you sue somebody.
Well I did it today one day late, signed up to the photo sharing account (webshots?) and could not find my photo tagged onewebday. There was one guy who took a slew of photos around a church and tagged ALL his photos onewebday, thereby shutting every one else out.
I’d done it on Flickr tagging a photo onewebday and that too was lost amongst a pile of other photos. However it was one of my more popular ones and can be found here
i didn’t see it coming! DANG! Never heard of it til just now. I hereby donate phonecon to onewebday or one day web or one-a-day web. Thank you Web!!