The Power of the Internet
Lately I’ve been completely blown away by the power of the internet, and blogging specifically. When I started blogging, blogs didn’t even exist. Now people make a living off blogging. People are offered opportunities and make connections with people that would not be possible otherwise. Not just one instance, but a ton of them. Check out these examples.
Political Math (AKA Matthias Shapiro or 10000Pennies)
Ever seen this video? It was posted on youTube my Matthias and quickly became viral. The videos got the attention of the news media and Washington. His videos have been linked to from many national news outlets and shown on cable news shows. He now has tons of followers on his visualization blog and twitter accounts. He continues to do experiences on TV and has been eluding to a change coming in his career.
Dooce (AKA Heather Armstrong)
I’m not really sure how this blog got to be so huge. I think one of the things that drew women to it is that Heather wrote about her experience with postpartum depression while she was going through it. Her blog is raw and truthful but Heather is a brilliant writer and also makes you laugh. I have to imagine that many first time mothers connected with her and looked to her for support. She is now often invited to speak at conventions and video blogs regularly on Momversation.
DC Rainmaker (AKA The Boss or Ray)
I stumbled on this blog through a mention in a review on Amazon. As I understand it Ray is a triathlete geek who got into doing really good product reviews on his blog with all of the super geeky details that most of us care about. The reviews started getting mentioned all over Amazon.com as a great place to see really good reviews of cycling/running/fitness type products. As the reviews got more popular, he started to get early releases from companies like Garmin and Polar to do reviews on (and give feedback to them I’m sure). As far as I can tell, Ray still has a “regular” job; whatever that means. I didn’t classify Ray in this “famous blogger” category until I read this post on detailing the plethora of items that were delivered to him as a media reporter at Interbike. Wow! Interbike is huge and this guy is on the radar.