My main interest now is in the transformative potential of the emerging person-centered social media.

I read mostly blogs... starting from just a selected few... and following the links from there:

• dana boyd (apophenia)
• Marc Andreessen
• Michael Parekh (on IT)
• Charlene Li (Forrester)
• Brad Feld (Thoughts)
• Simeon Simeonov
• John Battelle (Searchblog)
• Jon Udell
• Mashable
• Meg Hourihan (Megnut)
• Read/WriteWeb
• Jason Calacanis

I must be a considerate idealist... according to this personal DNA test... :)

You are a tourist on a city street... trying to find your way. How do you get help?

Help Yourself

You use a map or a booklet with information about the city. That's ok... although... feels a bit like work... and is somewhat lonely.

People Helping People

You ask a passer-by for directions... Or simply, a passer-by recognizes your "tourist" behavior, stops on his/her own will and spends 30 seconds (often much more) helping you. You feel good. The passer-by feels even better. Witnessing onlookers feel good too. What happens is an easy, almost instinctive "give and take"... so natural that we don't even think about who "gives", who "takes", or why is this happening. This is not "giving"... people are just helping each other.

So... what is Aidpage?

Aidpage is a free public space on the Web where you can:

• speak out about your problems and needs,
• act upon your need to help others,
• join or organize groups for good causes.

Aidpage fosters informal communication among Aidmates, sharing of experience, and mutual support. Simply posting on Aidpage makes you an Aidmate.

E-Bay enables the simple, direct "people buying from people" over the Internet.

Aidpage enables the simple, direct "people helping people" over the Internet.

Need to know more?

Here are a few links to the aidpages of veteran Aidmates:

• WHO ~ KNEW
• Soulight
• Elaine of TSA
• Ekikaseven
• Lady Christie

See also:

• Instructions: How to Use Aidpage
• How Does Aidpage Work
• Why Aidpage...

A big, big "Thank You" to all aidmates who gave time and care here on Aidpage in 2006!

WHO~KNEW, soulight ... you definitely are THE aidmates of 2006!

And everyone of us - here on Aidpage - is the "Person of the Year" for 2006! They say, in this article in TIME Magazine, that "really a revolution" is happening... enabled by the web:

"It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing."

But we knew that long before hearing it from TIME Magazine, didn't we?

Merry Christmas!

Great choice of TIME Magazine for Person of the Year. Here is the bit from the article we like most:

"It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing..."

Here is more from the article:

"The "Great Man" theory of history is usually attributed to the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who wrote that "the history of the world is but the biography of great men." He believed that it is the few, the powerful and the famous who shape our collective destiny as a species. That theory took a serious beating this year...

But look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web. Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together (15 years ago, according to Wikipedia) as a way for scientists to share research. It's not even the overhyped dotcom Web of the late 1990s. The new Web is a very different thing. It's a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it's really a revolution.

And we are so ready for it."

Here is the full article...