Indubitabil, Nu Conteaza.

Today, while I was going thru Sonia Simone’s blog post, a thought dashed my brain from one hemisphere to another:

We all begin the best of luck with little failure. 

People who have started out on a quest - be it a new business, marriage & family, a voyage trip around the world, coming-out or giving birth - they all faced-down a stumble block along the way, but mostly in the rough beginnings.

I started my journey when I was 20 years old.

Working in the online industry takes some preparation, I believe. Some time digging in the fine touches of working with web content and communities. I didn’t fully have that in advance, and it cost me quite a slow head-start. 

See, I had experience with web content from the view point of a small blogger. I started blogging for fun, in 2004, when it was still an emerging trend in .ro. So I could say I was an e-content producer in a way, before it turned into a full-time job.

But never had I thought how much more beyond that it meant to be a web-content editor. Because it means putting yourself both in the shoes of the giver (producer) and the receiver (user). Plus, I worked for one of the most renowned Romanian web-agencies, on the website of a grand telecom corp. Which means double the effort to pay attention to details, keep the message clear and appealing to users, and sell.

But let’s not go too far from what shook my head today.

My story is that I’ve been roaming in the land of www for longer than other people my age, and for purposes higher than merely check e-mail and chat with anonymous peeps over IRC (tho this is how I and other teens have started). I was looking into social networks and blogs as the tide began to raise, and the transition form web 1.0 to web 2.0 was being made in .com. I didn’t know much about .ro because my first quest began outside its borders.

To say the least, Romania hasn’t fully achieved maturity in web 1.0, tho it embraced some aspects of web 2.0 quite enthusiastically (we’re - proudly or not - the most users of Hi5.com). But the average Romanian computer & Internet user (from 5-7 mil., as stats estimate) is likely more appealed by checking e-mail, browsing online newspaper editions, chat & rave around forums, than blog or comment on opinionated blogs, or produce video/audio content (podcasts). Hence, it can’t always be a reliable source for citizen journalism or have an advised opinion on and about web.

There are just a few strong, opinionated voices that have been there both in 1.0 and 2.0 eras, web entrepreneurs that nowadays are called upon to share their knowledge and experience in conferences or student gatherings. They are the trend setters of Romanian online.

But the industry is still young and growing.

There’s plenty of room for the New Generation of entrepreneurs and web-literates to take the lead. The problem is: how long have they been on the web? And moreover, how much does this really matter?

Getting back at me, I first took contact with the Internet back in ‘99. I started with the use of IRC, as it was a popular trend, esp. with teenagers. Then, in 2001 I set up my first e-mail account on Hotmail, followed by another on Yahoo!. For some 1 1/2 year, MSN.com had been my all-in-one info platform. I only turned to Yahoo! in 2002-2003, and discovered a whole new aspect of web community. I began using its services and dropped Hotmail once increased e-mail storage on Yahoo! was available. Soon after, I discovered the Internet can be a fruitful source of knowledge and more.

(part 2)

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*Read the related articles as well. They sure helped me have a broader view.