It’s the year of you
When I got home tonight the December issue of Time Magazine was waiting for me on the counter. I still really like to read magazines, I like to hold them in my hands, turn the pages, and watch my dog eat them. Tonight the cover of Time just reached up and smacked me in the face.
I was immediately interested to see that Time’s Man of the Year is….You.
Interested, I sat down on in a chair and read the first article discussing how Web 2.0 and user generated content has changed the world. Time Magazine, stopping short of deciding whether it’s for the better or the worse, proceeded to describe how “You” are participating in “community and collaboration on a scale never seen before”. I could not help but pick up on few sentences that make it all come into focus for me, specifically in context with Lijit Networks, our new company.
“The new Web is a very different thing,. It’s a tool for the bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it’s really a revolution”
Time Magazine, December 25, 2006, page 40
Wow, that really hits home for me. Everyday I’m telling the story of how Personal Network Search is an incredibly powerful concept. When I want to search for how to start a company, I want to search the world of Brad Feld, my long time friend and business associate. When I want to learn about Mutual Funds, I want to search my Dad, my long time father and reader of shit that bores the hell out of me. When I want to learn about Boulder Valley Schools, I want to search my wife. The ‘Lura’ search isn’t limited to just schools…
The point is, the time is absolutely perfect for this company. Two years ago there were practically no vehicles to capture personal opinion, relevant research, or the network of people we know that make up the way each of us see the world. Today, thanks to online bookmarks, personal Blogs, YouTube videos, and Flickr photos, we leave an incredibly valuable trail of digital breadcrumbs that describe exactly who we are and what we think of the world.
Shouldn’t you be able to search it?
If what we are doing isn’t right.. It’s beyond my comprehension why…
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