As a user user of the internet for quite a while, I’ve joined many communities. Some I’ve stopped participating in, some disappeared, but they still made an impact on me nonetheless.

It’s been amazing to see communities evolve, with each person making contributions, no matter how small.

I was a member of a certain forum for years, and it amazed me to see how the people at the top, who were veterans, and made the majority of the posts, actually took the new users under their wings.

And people I had never met were always there to talk to, and happy for it as well.

Today I was amazed and touched by the sense of community of Reddit.com.

I logged on to find two posts on the front page that were nothing short of remarkable.

One detailed a young boy dying of cancer, and reached out to the community to try to make this the best Christmas for him, as he probably wouldn’t see this years, and the family was celebrating early for him.

The young boy wants nothing but Christmas cards, and considering the remarkable amount of people on this thread, its likely his mail will be backed up for a few weeks.

The amazing part is, they’re putting their time and energy into making someone else’s life better. Even if its just a Christmas card, it makes the world of difference to this little boy.

The other detailed how a redditer’s mother suffered from mouth cancer, and she created a recipe book for those who couldn’t eat normally. She passed before its completion, but the family finished it, and published it. All the books profits go to the Mouth Cancer Foundation.

Moments later my girlfriend called me to tell me she saw the same thing and it occurred to me: her cousin had suffered a similar cancer, and this book would be remarkably useful to her and her family.

The book found its way to her indirectly, through a group of amazing people and an amazing community.

On another section of the website, people with relationship problems get remarkable advice. Where else could someone find something like that? Where serious people give serious answers for people’s problems. People helping people from the kindness of their hearts.

What I’m trying to get across is the abilities of these communities are life changing for some people.

They show that even with all the bad things happening out there, there’s still a place where people care.

We need more of these communities.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Technorati Tags: Community, Help, Reddit

Community · Help · Reddit

“Those who are resistant to change, are destined to perish.”
- Old Italian proverb

Mashable’s 4 Things Old Media Can Learn From the Music Industry’s Last Decade inspired this rant, the article is about the evolving news industry, but it uses the evolving music industry as an example.

Both are going from physical to digital forms, and need to embrace it, as that is what the consumer demands.

This is still a struggle for certain music industry representatives (ahem, Warner Music – Youtube), and they are ignoring what the people want.

The article gives lessons of what the music industry did/is doing wrong, and how the news industry can take these lessons, and do it properly, without discouraging its readership, or turning them off of the media completely.

The music industry, specifically the American’s RIAA, still has yet to learn from this lesson. Ruining people’s lives by suing them for everything they’re worth is NOT the way to convince more people to buy more music.

Its disturbing to see it happen, and it only hurts this industries dwindling reputation.

People who see such negative actions will not be more driven to support the industry, but to destroy it and rebel.

Fear tactics don’t work on such a massive audience, and making an example of a handful of people has not yet, and won’t turn this situation around.

What these “suit-filled” major labels need to do is adapt, accept, and adopt new models to make it work for them.

And most importantly be a service for the people. The best way to recover from such a massive loss in sales is to give people what they want.

If the consumer’s happy, they will be more driven to support your business, and tell other people to do so as well.

With everyone so connected with social networking, and everyone hearing about everyone else’s antics this is the first and only step the industry should be taking.

From then on, keep the customer happy, supply them with what they want, and MORE.

Doing the bare minimum has never worked before, and won’t work now, especially when people can avoid the major labels completely, and get it straight from the artists. (The majority of Amanda Palmer’s income comes directly from her fans.)

Give people a reason to come back, and support your business, and make sure you’re always one step ahead of them.

This means supplying CDs, MP3s, vinyl, FLAC, tape, hell whatever people are still buying, or will buy.

What the industry needs is consumers, and I think this has been a major point the industry is missing.

Let’s stop resisting the change, and give the consumer what they want, without making them pay a price for changing their mind on how they want their product supplied to them.

Industries change, and evolve, constantly, why does the music industry think its any different?

Popularity: 15% [?]

Technorati Tags: Music Industry, Success

Music Industry · Success