I’ve been a blog slacker here on my own blog for the past few days, because I was invited to be “Me. of the Week,” or guest blogger for a week at Me.dium, so all my bloggerings have been posted there. I’ve really enjoyed posting at Me.dium, a lively new site that lets you wander the internet with other people, or at least with their little icons, which show you who’s looking at what, and why you might want to check it out, too. So far, I’ve posted about the perils of podcasting as my self-imposed deadline approached, the wonders of the vacuum elevator my folks are going to install at their house in Maine, my love of David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) system, and the media feast I enjoyed today flying home to Denver after our long stay in Cambridge, Mass.
Part of the fun at Me.dium has been the comments. I was particularly impressed with a guy named Grant’s response to my podcast musings about what constitutes a friend on the internet, and I’d like to copy what he wrote at the Audio Pod Chronicles here:
I was intrigued by your questioning of the meaning of “friend” on the internet. I use a simple definition for myself – a friend is someone I’ve interacted with once, and wouldn’t mind interacting with again in the future.
And you are absolutely right about technology breaking the barriers between people.
For example, before traveling to Bangkok last year I was doing some internet research on the city – and discovered a website called “Virtual Tourist.” Through this website, I was able to meet many friendly Thai people who were more than happy to meet me and show me around their amazing city. Needless to say, the places they took me I would have never been able to find on my own!
There are many such traveling websites today – which hope to bridge that gap between a tourist and the locals. My favorite is CouchSurfing.com, of which I am an active member of. I even recently hosted a couple from Prague traveling through Denver. We drove to Aspen to see the fall colors and met up with other CouchSurfers (Aspen locals) for drinks!
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