I wanted to share a realization that I had today. The realization is this: it is utterly amazing how enabling the web has become for connecting people. Yes, this statement might sound a bit dated, what with the success of sites like Facebook and Twitter. But I mean "connected" on a larger scale. Not just to your friends, and pseudo-friends, but connected to swarms of people that you could NEVER have reached before. If you take a step back and look at it, it's astonishing.

I came to this realization this afternoon, when I was looking through the presentations that took place at TED2009 a few weeks ago. I saw this one staggering performance that just took my breath away: a piano solo by an Eric Lewis, alternative-rock/jazz musician. Upon reading his profile, he mentioned his Twitter account. I promptly followed him, and then sent him a message directly to him giving him kudos for his performance.

I stopped and thought about this for a while, and it donned on me: how else could this have been possible without the social services that proliferate on the web today...services like FriendFeed, Facebook, Twitter, BrightKite, etc? There's no way! I started thinking about past experiences and realized how prevalent this was. One week, I was in San José for work. I saw on BrightKite someone mention that Guy Kawasaki was coming to the same hotel I was staying at to host a book signing for his latest book. There was no mention of a time of or a date or even a specific location (just an event name was mentioned). So, I went on Twitter and asked Guy Kawasaki himself! An hour later, he replied, and two hours later, I got a signed book! On another occasion, I remember seeing a video of an artist who calls himself The Blindfolded Pianist. His videos caught my eye because he was playing the theme songs for Super Mario Brothers on his piano. Anyways, a few months later, I was inspired to include him in a post that I was writing. I embedded his YouTube video on my blog, and 2 days later, he e-mails me thanking me for the inclusion!

These are just a few examples, but there are many more! It's really quite amazing, and I just wanted to share it. Do you have any examples of how the social web has connected you to people you never could have reached otherwise? Please share!

Charles