Friday, January 10, 2014

A Poetry Re-issue: I'm Pretty Well Connected

I first posted this poem back in September of 2008 and discussed revisiting it to see which of these links would still be active as time passed. Take a read and make a guess!

I’M PRETTY WELL CONNECTED
(a Web 2.0 poem)
By
Greg Pincus

I’m pretty well connected:
Facebook’s got my face.
I AIM and blog.
Of course I vlog.
Come see me at MySpace.

I Flickr, and I Twitter.
I wiki and Squidoo!
I’m Live. I Ning.
I’m there on Xing.
I’m really LinkedIn, too.

I Hulu, Yelp, and Google.
My YouTube channel’s hot.
I share Goodreads,
Have many feeds,
And Digg and link a lot.

Second Life and Classmates?
Xanga? RateItAll?
I’m on those four
And dozens more
Plus some I can’t recall.

I’m pretty well connected:
My friends are EVERYWHERE.
I bet I’d meet
Them on the street...
If I’d just leave my chair.


Would you believe that all the links to companies are still valid? Yes, a few companies have changed a lot in the intervening years (Myspace anyone?) but they're all still kicking. Go figure! (By the way, one reason I thought of this poem is that it turns out that a Facebook friend and I passed each other on a hiking trail in Big Sur over the holidays, though we didn't speak there. Still, it proved my punchline!)

It's Poetry Friday today, with this week's roundup of posts over at Mainely Write (which is safely out of the polar vortex!). Go on over and check it out.

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9 comments:

Donna Smith said...

Great poem! I'm afraid I may still be signed on to some of these too and have just forgotten about them!

Margaret Simon said...

Fun poem. Some of these I have never heard of, like Xanga and Digg. Technology changes so quickly. I do like that I can connect to people like you all over the globe without leaving my chair.

Lee Wind, M.Ed. said...

I've always loved this poem, but I'm actually surprised that things don't change as quickly as they seem to. With the exception of Myspace, my take on most of these is the same as in 2008 - some I use, some I've only heard of, and others I'm like, "Huh?"

I guess what's missing are some of the newcomers, like Vine and Snapchat. Maybe you need to add a stanza?

Thanks for sharing it again, Greg - very fun to see it with our current 2014 perspective.

best,
Lee

tanita✿davis said...

Funny one - It's just even more true than it was the first time you put it out there!!!

Greg Pincus said...

Thanks, y'all. Lee - I actually wrote a version 2.0 of this poem the next year, and then realized I'd have to do so each year to keep up. I think change comes slower than we think in one part because if a name and URL becomes popular (like MySpace), there's residual value, so the link is likely to be around for a lonnnng time. I think. Anyway, I should do a new one!

Mary Lee said...

Very fun!

I'm thinking about you passing a FB friend on the trail without realizing it. Those online connections feel so real, and yet, in reality, they are invisible!

April Halprin Wayland said...

Love this and love the last thought.

Today while I was hiking with my pup, my car mechanic called to reschedule an appointment. After taking the call (my first mistake), I turned the phone off.

GO AWAY, World!

Thanks for the reminder, GP!

:Donna Marie said...

More than the fact that you said they were pretty much all still there, what I'm REALLY amazed by is the fact that YOU were on all those things! LOL

:Donna Marie said...

More than the fact that you said they were pretty much all still there, what I'm REALLY amazed by is the fact that YOU were on all those things! LOL