On Christmas Eve of 2004, Sachi and I made a decision.  We decided that, in one year, we would depart on a year long trip.  We reserved a web site address that night: www.theworldisnotflat.com (TwinF).  In January of 2006 we departed, dedicated to blogging the whole trip.

After a glowing recommendation from another traveler along the way, we added Sri Lanka to our itinerary, with some apprehension.  Sri Lanka experiences some domestic terrorism, but it mostly stays in the northern part of the country.  Further, the southern part of the country was devastated by the tsunami a year before. We knew it would be an adventure.

Thanks to connections via Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree Forums we were introduced to Mervyn, our driver for 10 days in Sri Lanka. Like others in the tourism industry in Sri Lanka, Mervyn depends on tourists coming to their country. Tourists who start their plans by searching the Web.

This is Mervyn showing us how to drink a King Coconut:

We became friends with Mervyn and had a wonderful time in Sri Lanka.  We always felt safe and Mervyn was a perfect driver and guide - he gave us a local's perspective and became our friend. He introduced us to Arrack, a favorite alcohol of locals.  We told him that we would write about him on the Internet and hoped it would help his business. It was the least we could do.

Last night, on Christmas Eve, 4 years after deciding we would go on the trip, we received this email message from Mervyn:

DEAR SIR,

HOW ARE YOU? I AM FINE AND ALL OK WITH ME. I HAD GOOD BUSINESS FOR THIS YEAR. THAT IS BECAUSE OF YOU. THIS YEAR 90% FROM THE BUSINESS I GOT FROM YOUR WEB SITE THAT YOU RECOMAND ME. I SAY AGAIN AND AGAIN THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

I WISH MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU AND YOUR WIFE.

MERVYN

This message made our Christmas extra special this year. Mervyn is honest, has a good heart, is very hard-working, and deserves to have a successful business.  It's inspiring to me, as a blogger, to think that a couple of blog posts can make such a big difference to someone like him on the other side of the world. Our post is the #3 result for  "Driver Sri Lanka" on Google. I hope we can continue to help Mervyn's business in 2009. 

Our photos from Sri Lanka
Blog posts from Sri Lanka

I was recently pointed to Existential Ventures, where Broc is giving away a printer to one of the first 500 people who join his MyBlogLog "community". His inspiration was John Chow and apparently NetBusinessBlog joined in to. It looks like John has been able to drive the numbers of his MyBlogLog community to over 1000 people. John gave away a flash drive.

I’m generally a fan of contests – I think they can be used to promote products and bring awareness to issues in creative ways. I love Mike Davidson’s iPod giveaway contests, where we would challenge readers to be creative – see the comments on the Steve Jobs Movie Poster giveaway – funny stuff. Mike’s contest was about creativity and community. Sure it served to drive page views and make his site more popular, but it wasn’t about numbers or the iPod – it was about people participating because they are genuinely engaged with Mike and his readers.

When I see the MyBlogLog giveaways, it rubs me the wrong way. It feels disingenuous, like a get rich quick scheme that has no long term sustainability. I realize that “community�? in the case of MyBlogLog is not meant in a literal sense. However, I feel like these contests are a reflection of the idea that building community has shortcuts –like you can build any community you want if you have a sexy enough carrot.

Like I said, I realize that the MyBlogLog contests may not even seek to actually build a “community�?. However, I think they serve as an example of a popular misconception of communities on the web – that numbers matter more than substance. At the end of the day, the community that has genuinely engaged and motivated members, in whatever numbers, will produce higher quality results than those who joined because of a contest or some other ulterior motive. There are no shortcuts - communities are hard work.

A few weeks ago I posted a note about photos from our recent nuptials. Soon after, I notice the entry getting traffic and see that Google is pointing people to it.

Then I notice that somehow, at least for now, the entry is at the #2 position in a search for wedding pictures(search results- may change). I cannot imagine how many sites there are devoted to that subject or how my site gets the #2 position.

This is telling me that there is a google-niche here that needs to be filled by someone other than me. Or maybe I’ll take up wedding photography. Either way, I’m not sure what Google is thinking.

I guess the real message here is that I need to get going on AdWords.

Peter Kaminski: Irrational? Transcendental!

Peter points out that the number Google choose as the amount they would raise in the IPO could have a not-so-hidden meaning:

Wow! Reading Bambi Francisco's CBS MarketWatch article, I see that Google chose to raise $2,718,281,828 in their IPO. Why such an irrational (wink, wink) number?

It turns out that 2.718281828... (...and an infinite number of digits after that) is 'e', the base of the natural logarithm. Because it can't be expressed as a ratio of two numbers, it's known mathematically as "irrational" -- something some bankers might say about the way Google is going public. However, 'e' also happens to be "transcendental," another fancy property of a number that means it can't be expressed by a finite number of algebraic operations. Maybe Google is making a little wordplay -- saying they expect to transcend expectations -- to overcome or notably exceed ordinary limits.

Cool ideas from folks with bigger brains than myself. The first comment on his post is a good one too.