It’s been a crazy few weeks. Just finished up attending the incredible BlueGlassLA seo and social marketing conference for Clicker which, by the way, is by far the best way to watch free tv online (learning quick!) and, amidst all the craziness, finally had a moment to reflect on how lucky I’ve been and how much my first month at Clicker (you know, that site where you can watch tv shows for free)  has been even better than I could have expected. That’s a testament to the company and its people, but it’s not what this post is about. Instead, it’s about my previous post, the post about how I graduated,  turned down Google, came to work at a startup, and the Internet in general.

The web is huge. And no matter how big it gets, how many people have written about this or that a bazillion times, somehow there’s always something interesting to read every day, something valuable to tweet, something worthwhile. That’s incredible, isn’t it? We’ve all read a million blog posts on how to get the most out of Twitter, but if you just glance across social media sites, you’ll come across some great insight, some thought-provoking story that’s been shared by someone you trust. With all the value placed on aggregation and curation, with what some perceive as a such a huge gap between the “influencers” and everyone else, and with all the redundancy of the same information packaged in a bunch of different ways, there’s still a place for content to resonate and rise to the top, no matter where it came from– as long as it’s smartly positioned and worth people’s time.

What am I talking about? My “How I Graduated Harvard, Turned Down Google, Got a Job on Twitter, and Why I’m Joining Clicker” article (at least the headline) was obviously written to grab attention– and, of course, as many have pointed out, some of the stuff at the end sounded like a marketing schpiel for Clicker (which it was enthusiastically, if unintentionally). So I definitely wrote it hoping to get some online traction– but, I think, for the right reason: to tell a story that meant something to me that I hoped others would be inspired by or at least learn something from. But I had no idea how wildly successful it’d be. I put it on Twitter, sent a tweet to Chris Dixon, and before I knew it, Silicon Alley Insider Senior Editor Nicholas Carlson was asking if they could republish it on the site… which they did. I was famous! (Sort of). It seemed my story had hit a chord– or, at least, a nerve. The next few days were a whirlwind. I spent hours staring at Chartbeat, the awesome real-time website analytics service, as I watched people pop up, read my blog post, and leave a comment from all over the world (this turns out to be crazy addictive– so run, don’t walk, to install it… but then make sure you use it only in moderation.) It was a wild ride. In less than a few days, my blog post received over 10,000 views (in total from Hacker News, the San Francisco Chronicle, Silicon Alley Insider, and my site– which received around half that) and tons of comments (some good, many rough). The story was RTed over 100 times (at least that’s how many I could keep track of), I gained over 250 Twitter followers, and received nearly 20 personal emails from people reaching out– to ask questions, clarifications, or just to say the story meant something to them. To those of you who did that, thanks! That stuff was pretty incredible & I truly appreciate it. I’ve had coffee or drinks with 4 of them already (and none of them tried to kill me, so that’s great, right?)– and even developed a strong bond with a couple of them over similar interests and passions.

The point of all this? I’m super lucky. Super lucky to be in a great job working for an incredible (watch tv online) company! Super lucky to maybe have hit some growing resentment against Google (of which I have none, by the way– I think they’re awesome, but just that their job offer wasn’t right for me) or maybe provoked some bitter people who want to complain about everything Harvard. I don’t know– but super lucky.

And we’re super lucky– because it’s awesome that, no matter how big the internet is and how much content is being created right now, we can still be inspired and moved after reading an article that’s been RTed a bazillion times from people we’ve never heard of before. Awesome, huh?

So, to all of you– thanks for reading. And expect many less posts about me in the future– and many more about digital media. Thanks again!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 at 10:00 am and is filed under Digital Media, Harvard, Ideas & Stories, Me, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.