I’m hesitating before posting this, because some of the people involved are my friends, but what the hell is One Web Day supposed to be all about?
“The mission of OneWebDay is to create, maintain, advance, and promote a global day to celebrate online life: September 22, 2006″
and from an email I just received on it:
the web is going to be celebrated.. like earth day!
please come help spread the word that the “one web” we have now is under threat and needs to be protected and celebrated for all the ways it’s enriched our lives and given us tremendous opportunities!
And it gets better:
OneWebDay
The Web is worth celebrating.
OneWebDay is one day a year when we all – everyone around the physical globe – can celebrate the Web and what it means to us as individuals, organizations, and communities.
As with Earth Day – an inspiration and model for OneWebDay – it’s up to the celebrants to decide how to celebrate. We encourage all celebrations! Collaboration, connection, creativity, freedom.
By the end of the day, the Web should be just a little bit better than it was before, and we’ll be able to see our connection to it more clearly.
OneWebDay is September 22 every year, starting in 2006.
If you write about OneWebDay or take a picture related to OneWebDay (there’s a special hand signal — you extend your middle three fingers and have your thumb and little finger touch in a circle) tag it onewebday and it will show up on this site.
Bleh.
We must be in a bubble.
Mike, the point is to have a way to emphasise the positive aspects of the web so there is something other than porn, piracy and virus stories to read for those outside our little world.
Kevin, Come on. They have a frickin hand signal.
Is this about Net neutrality?
It has changed my life and for the better. It is how I communicate with friends, learn new things and get work done. A bit of celebration is in order. I don’t see One Web Day as bubble-hype, just a nice reason to thank the web for what it has given us and what we have given it.
Simple. This is a meetup for those without enough to do.
This has got to be a hoax. Right? If not, I’m with Mike. Bleh.
This seems a bit forced and I definately think they should hold back on the number of latte’s they are consuming each day. Go outside and take a walk!
cheers,
raff
No, this isn’t a hoax, and thanks for the comments. It’s just that people who are already in the loop (like the readers and commenters here) think it would be hopelessly corny to celebrate the internet — obviously it’s important! Obviously it has changed your lives!
But the web is under pressure all over the world. I thought it would be important to establish a global day when we do collaborative, artistic, fun, big (24 hours in the day of cyberspace) projects so that the web is visible to everyone. Not just the insiders. It took Earth Day seven years to get started, and I’m sure people thought it was a ridiculous idea at the beginning.
Take a look at the faq and other materials at onewebday.org.
Canada’s .ca registry is also having an internet day on the same day, and they’ve devoted 140K to it. We have a UK chapter that is working on this as well, and you’ll see some interesting things happen on 9/22 (this year, and all the other years).
We may be in a business bubble, but that bubble depends on a healthy and diverse internet. And that concept is definitely under pressure around the world.
susan
There’s a dinner next week when Susan’s coming to town – go and listen to her and see if it makes sense:
http://www.onewebday.org/wiki/index.php?title=SF_Event
This is just a scheme to sell some books. I’m sure that the end-game is to slurp up all the tagged content and put it into some kind of book that then gets pitched to all the people who contributed.
Do you remember the “24 Hours” series of coffee table books? Exactly.
I assure you that this is not a scheme to sell anything.
Susan Crawford
Dumbest.Idea.Ever.
But since it’s happening I want dibs on selling the ‘official’ t-shirts…
Hi Mike,
Actually, the point is that there are folks out there who want to contain and block you on the internet. And then charge you more than you pay now, to be free to move about. They are CEO’s of large telcos and they don’t understand that the value of the internet is in the fact that it’s “one web”, one big, stupid, unblocked web. We can all reach each other just fine thank you, and they should go away, and not screw it up… but I think they have too much at stake to do that so instead they are going to try.
One way to make people aware of how important the stupid web is, is to have a day to celebrate the ways the internet has changed our lives. And the beauty of it is that those big political companies and nations that get political over things like net neutrality have to agree.. the stupid web is pretty cool. And pretty necessary.. our you could find TechCrunch blocked if you don’t pay the toll to let your readers get it.
So.. I hope you come to the dinner to check out Susan’s pitch. She’s very smart and worth listening to.
mary
>> (there’s a special hand signal — you extend your middle three fingers and have your thumb and little finger touch in a circle)
Is the hand signal used within the World Organisation of the Scout Movement. http://www.mith.umd.edu/outreach/digitaldirections/students/cary/sign.jpg
Used to symbolise the three parts of the promise when saluting. errr, they hardly want to associate with that, or do they?!
1.) i guess no one notices that the hand signal is the same as the “OK” signal? makes me thing… “yah, OK… one web day… riiiight…”.
2.) will there be hallmark cards? or bluemountain e-cards? if i send this blogposting to 25 of my closest friends, will my crush IM me?
Hmm – interesting. How about a “be kind online” day?
This is just asking for an internet virus set to go off on 9/22.
I think it’s a good idea: I’ve been doing something I call “blog consulting”, which primarily consists of teaching non-web professionals how to use a Wordpress blog, and what the blogosphere is and why they should participate. These are intelligent people–psychologists, therapists, public speakers, etc.–and they have no idea what is going on on the web these days. Average, non-web people have no clue about the stuff you and I take for granted, and this OneWebDay thing could be a way to start changing that.
The internet isn’t dying because of “Big Telco”. It’s dying because of retarded ideas like this, which embarrass a fourth grader.
“there’s a special hand signal — you extend your middle three fingers and have your thumb and little finger touch in a circle)”
Easier to make a hand signal than fix the net.
Recalling a conversation between a smart guy and a smarter guy:
“Hey, it’s the 21st century. Where’s my flying car?”
“Dude, we have the internet, and that’s way better than a stupid flying car.”
I think a lot of us forget how cool this thing we’ve built actually is, and how important it is, so a day of celebration isn’t an entirely stupid idea. (And yes, the web isn’t the internet, but it is the coolest part of it)
The hand signal tho? Sheesh, that we can skip.
Generally good points all around, except the ones about ‘people with nothing to do’ which is just stoopid. Am not sure what to think about it yet myself and am holding off on judgement till tonight’s discussion, but my impression was that it is a way to focus people’s attention on celebratng the web AND making it better somehow through action. If it was just like 24 hours online or some other Hallmark Holiday, I would agree with Mike. But as an attempt to bring people together to tout the benefits of the web for those people who dont ‘get it’ and to figure out how to make it better in some small, personal way – I say go for it.
But you are all right about the hand signal thingy – ‘the shocker’ never really took off for a good reason, it was silly – lesson learned (I had hoped).
Interesting study in tonality and packaging affecting whether people thing something is a good idea or a bad idea – it really does feel a bit hokey overall, so perhaps that is something we can fix by coming together to talk about it.
You’re right — you’ll all so right! The hand signal is hokey.
Forget the hand signal. No more hand signal! (It was a joke moment on a conference call that has gotten a little out of hand, so to speak.)
Grateful for the comments.
No more hand signal.
Susan
was this post on March 1 2006.