Rechargable Ideas

This is why the Internets is cool. You can share an idea, and name that idea and if the idea is interesting enough, it can catch on. Since sketchcast.com debuted, the idea of “sketchcasting” finally found a tool that made it a whole lot easier. Next thing you know, the term “sketchcast” is showing up in over 320,000 Google results. I’m guessing there aren’t a lot of false positives in there because the term didn’t exist three months ago.

You have to appreciate the organic nature of the Internet. Your idea or concept still has to fight for attention, but if and when people do connect to it, it spreads on its own fumes. It’s this self-sufficiency that makes the Internet so powerful. In the old days, it required brute force to blast out an idea. Marketing campaigns. Conventions and presentations. Branding and co-branding. And so on.

I suppose this is what’s called a meme, but I’m not sure if that’s accurate. I personally prefer to distinguish an idea that people actively connect with (like the term “ajax”) and something that you just pass along (like a 30 second Youtube video).

There is one other wrinkle to all this. We’d like to think that this all happens in some elegantly organic manner. Little by little the masses congeal and form an Idea Movement of sorts, but alas the megaphones are still out there. You could make a strong argument that an idea like sketchcasting would’ve never reached such heights without the Techcruch post. Either way, it’s fun to track its proliferation.

Someone needs to call Sharpee for a co-branding deal.