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).