I feel like I am part of a tornado that just roared through Kansas! A lifetime ago I learned about something called the WorldWide Web. My first foray was AOL. Wow, it had news, chat rooms, shopping—simply amazing! All I needed to do this was a box called a modem, a telephone line, and patience—for when the connection failed—but I would just diligently redial and smile because I was able to shop the world and catch up with friends all from my home PC (don’t you just love tech talk?).Next I launched my company website, www.greatgetway.com which has morphed into www.greatgetaways.travel. I learned new stuff like HTML and flash. Can you believe we could .com, .net, .org, .us, .tv, and DOT TRAVEL .travel????Oh, and next came the weblog, the blog–an online journal of my activity…hmmm. Not sure if this idea will take off…So glad I’m not the tech prognositicator extraordinaire! I couldn’t believe how blogging has become an important part of life–personal, business, social.This world is starting to spin uncontrollably fast!Okay, just as I’m learning to navigate and use WordPress, somebody told me about facebook and myspace. “Watch out,” she warned, “your kids will spend hours on these sites.” I started watching my son’s activity. “Mom, can I use your computer?” “Why, Josh?” “Oh, I need to research something on the Internet.” And, of course, he was connecting to this thing called “Facebook.” Who would spend time doing that, I wondered. I tried to investigate this new “fad” called social media. I couldn’t penetrate this teenage only world. It asked me what high school I attended and would verify my answer (Remember back then?). I dismissed this as a passing fad and went back to stressing over why I can’t position photos where I want to on WordPress.
My memory gets foggy after that lull. At some point facebook opened up to those over 18, blogs began to influence thought, and you could watch movies and TV on your laptop. I joined facebook (Okay, Josh, now I can watch what you’re really doing!), invited friends to join facebook, facebook added filters so our kids could filter exactly what we parents could see (Okay, Josh, I now have NO idea what you’re doing—might be better this way—TMI before!), and I felt like I had arrived. Then it all exploded—Great Getaways got a facebook page (After all, companies MUST use social media for marketing, right?), and joined linkedin, plaxo, too. Heard about twitter…what’s the point? Now, of course, you know I am tweeting and tweetdecking, and hootsuiting. Let me tell you, I rock! Travelingking1 wakes up, checks facebook, twitter (now I can do both from tweetdeck), replies, posts, notes, comments, searches—and, lo and behold, the day is over and it’s time for bed!
I’m in the vortex of this tornado!
I think I need a life—right after I get my fix of smartoons, www.smartoons.net
http://twitter.com/travelingking1
