I started this blog a month or so ago and it was originially intended to be an experimental place for me to really dig into online social networking as a marketing tool. Kind of a “help me do my job better” kind of thing.

As part of my learning process, I went and created accounts on all the major social networking sites (Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, Technorati, about 30 in total).

I then set about trying to figure out ways to manipulate them. I played with giving away a free magazine subscription, and writing a product review on a book I’d just finished.

During my study, I found myself drawn to a couple of the sites in particular. My favorites quickly became StumbleUpon and 43 Things, because they were fun and the people that post crap to their profiles are interesting.

Imagine that, me using the Internet for fun. I don’t do that. It’s a tool that I use to get work done. It’s a thing that makes me money from all the social fools that I manipulate.

Today, something happened. I’ve been gradually entering in goals and dreams to my account at 43 Things. I went to enter “find my muse” and “travel” (I’ve felt the need lately to start writing more, and I miss all the travel I used to do before I was married).

On a whim, I decided to see who else was interested in the same thing. I clicked on “travel” and found that 4,265 other people want to travel too. One of the first people to appear was bravenewlinda who lives in Austin. Her screen name was funny to me and I love Austin, Texas (from my days as a gypsy), so I decided to see what she’s interested in.

Now, don’t worry, this isn’t going to turn into some crazy stalker tale. I haven’t tracked BraveNewLinda to her home or anything psycho like that - nor do I plan to. I just want to talk about what happened.

Well it turned out that BraveNewLinda shares tons of interests with me. She obviously likes to travel (that’s how I found her in the first place), but she also is working to eliminate debt, wants to go to grad school, likes movies and literature, wants to visit all 50 states (I’m at 43 currently). I liked her immediately. When I noticed that BraveNewLinda listed her home page , I had to peek.

I found out that she has a blog of her own there that talks about all sorts of interesting things, including her recent experience with “Picture of Dorian Grey” by Oscar Wilde (which happens to be one of my top 5 favorite books of all time).

I spent about 20 minutes reading through her posts and by the time I finished, I felt like she was my friend. For the first time in my decade of professional experience in the Internet industry, I finally got it. The Internet is a great big huge social network and it should be played in like a park. It should be tasted, explored, digested, and loved.

It’s funny that it took me so long to reach this conclusion, but I finally did. BraveNewLinda, if you ever somehow read this, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing yourself online. My world is better for it.

Now, I don’t know what I’m going to do with my recent revelation. For starters, though, I’m going to follow BraveNewLinda’s example and just post whatever the heck I feel like. I’ll write, play, and share. Maybe I’ll be the only person to ever read it. Even if that’s the case, it’ll be okay, because I’ll be writing about things that make me happy.

It’s official. I’m coming online.