I sometimes reflect on just how incredible the Internet is with its reach across the globe I am doing some work at Starbucks right now, and the guy who stands on the corner collecting money for the homeless walked in to get a cup of coffee. He and I frequently nod to each other and wish each other a good morning, but I know absolutely nothing about him.
As he was leaving Starbucks this morning, he saw me on my computer and asked if I had heard of YouTube before. After telling him I was familiar with it, he gave me a piece of paper with his name on it and told me to check him out on YouTube. Low and behold, there he was beat boxing. His seven videos garnered a few hundred views in about a month, no doubt intrigued by his beat boxing skill and cool personality.
On my way home today, I am going to give him something more valuable than a dollar or spare change. I am going to make a suggestion to him. He should buy the .com of his beat boxing persona (I will even buy it for him). He should then overlay this domain name on his videos to bring traffic to his website. If he adds his contact information to his new website, perhaps someone across the globe will be intrigued by his skill and offer him some work. Even a simple blog site with contact information could give him the exposure he needs to break out of anonymity.
Assuming he takes advice, this will be one time he is happy that I didn’t give him a dollar.
Right on man. I’ve given similar advice to a friend who enjoys cooking and I’m trying to get her to do cooking videos on YouTube and then post them on her own site. I know I’d rather receive great advice then just a few bucks.
and then print up an ms word doc with the url printed out 50 times so he can cut it up and hand those out…
A beautiful gift for the holiday season…
That’s so funny that you should mention starbucks as the place to swap or trade internet information. I go there for my ground pound of “house blend” (and my free complimentary cup) once a week. Every time I go I get a paper bag to take the ground coffee in. Anyway to get to the point, I collect these bags in my hallway closet and the other day they were over flowing. So I packed them all up neatly folded and returned to Starbucks with them. I asked the manager there if he reuse them, as I didn’t see any need for them going in the trash. He said for sanitary concerns he couldn’t and/or wasn’t allowed to. But the girl on line behind me said go to a web site called GreenDetermined,com and type in “paper pickups” and a special company in our local area will pick it up and takes it and recycles them instead of the garbage companies. I just thought it was something to share since you mentioned starbucks. I guess that’s the new internet information loop.. lol 🙂