Over the Labor Day weekend I caught up on the TivoCast items I downloaded from Rocketboom, and saw this clip that featured an interview with Susan Crawford about OneWebDay (OWD). OWD is a yearly celebration of the Internet that takes place on September 22^nd. What a great idea! As I listened to Crawford’s passionate statements about the yearly global event, I decided to go ahead and check out OWD’s website.

As I perused the blog, I came across one post (“Have you thanked the web lately?”) that noted “OneWebDay gives us a chance to reflect about the ways in which the internet has changed the world, and to shed light on information-flow blockades around the globe.” and provided a list of suggested activities one could take part in to participate in the global celebration. Since there’s not an event in Atlanta this year, I thought I’d share the online activities for OneWebDay to help spread the word and maybe gain interest in a local event for next year.

Their main goal this year is to encourage people to make their own short videos and post them on blip.tv or YouTube tagged “onewebday2007″. Some of the suggested topics for user generated videos include:

• how the web has changed your life
• how you’d like the web to change the world in the future
• highlights of what you’ve seen online the day you make the video
• your favorite online event ever
• something you’ve done online with other people in other countries

I think these are great topics, and if I didn’t have this thing about posting video of myself on YouTube – I’d definitely submit one. I don’t mind writing though, so I thought I’d take a minute to talk about how the web has changed my life.

Through the years I’ve had access to the Internet, I have used it as a tool to meet other people and connect in a fashion that wouldn’t be possible without the use of the web. Growing up, many of my friends were people that I met online in IRC chat rooms. I wasn’t the coolest kid in school (which I know is hard for many of you to imagine now), so I didn’t have many friends and I had a hard time confiding in others. With the anonymity of the internet, I was able to discuss issues and obtain viewpoints from others. Along the way, I found ways to express myself and build confidence in the person I was. Since those awkward years, I’ve managed to make real life friends, but I’m still in contact with a few of my IRC buddies, which makes me very happy; they were a key part in my formative years and I won’t ever forget them.

Since then, the Internet has played an even bigger role in my life. Without the Internet I:

• Wouldn’t have my awesome job
• Wouldn’t have found my awesome apartment (yay for Craigslist!)
• Wouldn’t have an efficient way to communicate with a large group of people all at once (where would we be without email or social networking sites?)
• Wouldn’t have met one of my very best friends

But enough about me…I want to hear how the Internet has changed the lives of our blog readers. For those of you without a YouTube-phobia, I encourage you to submit video for OneWebDay and share the link on this blog post. If you’d rather not create a video, at least share your thoughts and feelings on the Internet in the comments below. I’m fascinated by the different stories I’ve heard so far, I’d really like to hear yours!