2002 (A Digital Decade, Part 3/10)
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
This is Part 3 (Read Part 1 and Part 2) of a personal look back at the sites, tools, behaviors, platforms, and technologies that have changed my life in the past 10 years. Please add your own thoughts and memories in the comments.
2002 was the year I joined Friendster; it was also the most depressing year of my life. I'm not sure if that's ironic or completely expected.
I hardly remember Friendster at the time, other than that it was immediately used as a free alternative to online dating sites, and was quickly adopted by the growing army of young funny people who were flocking to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre at the time. Which gets to one of the central, and often missed, truths of social network sites: most people use social network sites to connect with people that they know in real life. If Friendster hadn't been adopted by the people I was getting to know offline, there wouldn't have been much reason for me to join.
In March of 2002, I was hating my day job, and feeling frustrated about my limited opportunities as an actor. I decided to take a long vacation - my first since I moved to NYC in July 2000 - to visit some friends in Seattle. I had just invested in new head shots (click here for a laugh), and was determined to up my game when I returned to the city.
When I attempted to quit my job, they talked me into sticking around part-time. After all, I needed the money. And, as it turned out, they needed someone to redesign, and program, the company website.
Although I took a few classes, met some good new people, and landed a couple roles, I spent most of the summer in Central Park lying in Sheep's Meadow reading. I was slowly beginning to realize that while I loved acting, I wasn't so excited about spending most of my time putting stamps on envelopes and mailing out my headshot.
At the same time, however, I was beginning to settle into the arts scene in New York, between theater, the quickly growing comedy community at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, and some close friends who were part of the lower east side singer/songwriter scene (when Norah Jones was still stopping by to play gigs at The Living Room), and the classical music scene. We began hosting casual salons at our apartments, where we'd bring our creative friends together to share their talents with each other.
In Fall 2002, we created Greene Street Salon. We hosted our first official event in a gorgeous loft on Greene St, in Soho. And brought together an incredibly diverse group of artists from all sorts of different disciplines to share their work, and then party with around 100 other young New York based creative people.
Over the next few years Greene Street Salon introduced me to hundreds of the most talented artists I've ever known. It also was my first and best lesson in using the internet to build a fan base and market a brand. More on that in the next chapter.
2002 was the year I joined Friendster; it was also the most depressing year of my life. I'm not sure if that's ironic or completely expected.
I hardly remember Friendster at the time, other than that it was immediately used as a free alternative to online dating sites, and was quickly adopted by the growing army of young funny people who were flocking to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre at the time. Which gets to one of the central, and often missed, truths of social network sites: most people use social network sites to connect with people that they know in real life. If Friendster hadn't been adopted by the people I was getting to know offline, there wouldn't have been much reason for me to join.
In March of 2002, I was hating my day job, and feeling frustrated about my limited opportunities as an actor. I decided to take a long vacation - my first since I moved to NYC in July 2000 - to visit some friends in Seattle. I had just invested in new head shots (click here for a laugh), and was determined to up my game when I returned to the city.
When I attempted to quit my job, they talked me into sticking around part-time. After all, I needed the money. And, as it turned out, they needed someone to redesign, and program, the company website.
Although I took a few classes, met some good new people, and landed a couple roles, I spent most of the summer in Central Park lying in Sheep's Meadow reading. I was slowly beginning to realize that while I loved acting, I wasn't so excited about spending most of my time putting stamps on envelopes and mailing out my headshot.
At the same time, however, I was beginning to settle into the arts scene in New York, between theater, the quickly growing comedy community at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, and some close friends who were part of the lower east side singer/songwriter scene (when Norah Jones was still stopping by to play gigs at The Living Room), and the classical music scene. We began hosting casual salons at our apartments, where we'd bring our creative friends together to share their talents with each other.
In Fall 2002, we created Greene Street Salon. We hosted our first official event in a gorgeous loft on Greene St, in Soho. And brought together an incredibly diverse group of artists from all sorts of different disciplines to share their work, and then party with around 100 other young New York based creative people.
Over the next few years Greene Street Salon introduced me to hundreds of the most talented artists I've ever known. It also was my first and best lesson in using the internet to build a fan base and market a brand. More on that in the next chapter.
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