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This is a little bit of an unusual post, but what’s the power of the Internet for if not for helping friends (and friends of friends). Just got an e-mail from Myles Weissleder of Meetup.com:

It’s not often one has to request this kind of help …

Soon after Meetup.com launched, members of bookcrossing.com, a fledgling web community where book lovers ‘set books free’, starting having Meetups in their towns to trade books and chat. And since, a wonderful community has flourished on- and off-line. (Over 4,500 Bookcrossing Meetups to date!)

It was a real shocker to learn a few weeks ago that Daniel Clune, the head programmer at bookcrossing.com, disappeared on November 6th in Sandpoint, Idaho.

Please consider this plea from a bookcrosser:

“His family is devastated and the community dumbfounded. A young, healthy man, Daniel, 29, is known for his reliability… a stand up guy. Not the sort to take off on a flight of fancy. No one believes that his disappearance is voluntary. Something happened to Daniel Clune, and his family and friends need to know just what that something is. Please consider featuring the story of Daniel’s disappearance. The key to finding him is out there somewhere, but has not yet been found. Exposure is badly needed.”

Some links:

http://finddanny.com/
http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/5/1441038/22/subj_PLEASE-HELP
http://bookcrossing.meetup.com/

Maybe you can help spread the word?

Thank you.

-Myles (and the Meetup team)

I’m a bit late in posting this, but it turns out Daniel Clune’s body was found in late December. Sad story.

I’m a bit behind on blogging and just saw Seth Godin’s comment on how The Yellow Pages was the Internet of its day. Indeed.

Thought this Ohio Beacon Journal story was interesting, sort of along the lines of my Red States/Blue States and Business Culture post earlier (which has been surprisingly popular, according to FeedBurner).

I’m from Texas where hunting is just a part of the culture. My father and brother’s idea of bonding with my new husband is to take him out deer hunting. I’m not a hunter myself, nor do I encourage it, but I’m aware there are a whole lot of people out there that do engage in this “sport.” (Some of my favorite family members are hunters ;-)) Still, we don’t often hear about it in the news except where it concerns presidential candidate photo-ops or terrible horror stories.

(Though while surfing Google looking for a link, I did come upon this great headline in the San Jose Mercury News: Hunters almost never deliberately shoot others. Good to know!)

I was talking to a woman the other day in the course of my work, discussing a viral online marketing effort. She is a newbie to the online world, but was enthusiastic in sharing her hopes for the project. She suggested it might get attention from the press “and all those (pause) I hesitate to call them (pause) ‘bloggers.'” Apparently in her usual circles, “blogger” is a pejorative term, so she didn’t want to use it.

I assured her that, in fact, bloggers even proudly use the term to describe themselves. She was quite relieved 😉

Interesting culture clash and insight into how bloggers (and the term blogger) are perceived in some non-techie circles.

I wrote a nice big entry (munched by Blogger) about this great Marketplace feature on the introduction of the yellow pages to Kabul, Afghanistan. No time to reconstruct it, but suffice it to say the story is a really interesting reminder of the value of local directories, online or off. It’s fascinating to take a step into another local advertising market that’s also changing rapidly, but in an entirely different way than in the U.S.

My brother points me to a Web site where one of his neighbors chronicles how his Griswold-like obsession combines with just enough technological prowess to create… a holiday monstrosity. As if the above static light display isn’t enough, this fellow has developed, in recent years, an animated light show that blinks the lights in time to music.

Video of last year’s animated light show, created to accompany the tune “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” is here. Other tunes that got the light show treatment include the theme from Sponge Bob Square Pants and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s performance of “Sweet Home Alabama.” I can’t wait to visit my brother’s neighborhood this holiday season and see what this guy has in store for 2004.