Sunday, September 23, 2007

Happy OneWebDay!

Today, Saturday, is OneWebDay, a celebration of online life.

For my part of the general merriment, I want to recognize several Memphis events and organizations who've used the web to make something happen, something nearly impossible without the web.

  • The Zombie Walk. Brought a huge group of people together for bloody public theater. TheoGeo, one of its principals organizers, wrote soon after:
    One of these days maybe I'll write about how MySpace was the driving force behind the huge turnout, as opposed to more traditional means of advertising (we did both, but the vast majority of people came because of MySpace).
  • Memphis Rock 'n Romp. Recurring huge turnouts made possible by web-savvy organizers using simple/free tools.

  • Memphis Digital Conversation. Not only did citizens ask the questions, all the Mayoral candidates answered. And everyone can see the results. You don't need a studio audience, or a studio, to make this happen.

  • Friends for Our Riverfront. They weren't able to stop funding for Beale Street Landing but controlled the conversation (how many times did we hear BSL referred to as a "boat dock") through their blogsite and library. To this day, you can learn more about Beale Street Landing from FfOR's website than you can from its sponsor, the Riverfront Development Corp. Dollar for dollar FfOR is the most effective non-profit in Memphis.

  • Smart City Memphis. Unique among Memphis' establishment for not only saying publicly what they believe but allowing people to talk back -- to have a conversation. Online. For the world to see and read and sometimes angrily disagree with. Beautiful.

  • The Memphis Flyer. They've successfully melded their offline and online presence in an almost textbook fashion (as the text is written by my favorite web guru).

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5 Comments:

Blogger Stacey Greenberg said...

aw, shucks!

happy OneWebDay to you!

10:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

most of the jena six organizing and information-sharing was done online as well...

12:20 AM  
Blogger gatesofmemphis said...

fieldguide, another great use.

thanks to you and Stacey and anyone and everyone making a positive mark on Memphis and the world using these tools.

10:25 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

woot woot! big ups to you as well :)

10:57 AM  
Blogger theogeo said...

Yes indeed, big ups all of you who give me so much to read and ponder on these clogged interwebs.

My lazy ass never got around to writing that post about the importance of the internet in the organization of the zombie walk, but now that you've reminded me, I just might resurrect the topic.

10:02 PM  

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