Super Fancy Velcro Ibex

Sometimes I Get a Good Feeling

It’s a known affair, but today I can’t help but comment on the beauty and inspiration I find in the convoluted world of social media and everything digital.  A few days ago, I posted this: 

That was after I heard the song Maps on David’s blog, which referenced the Ann Arbor SoundCloud local post (written by Jami aka Seams). Chris sent me a thank-you tweet and suddenly I felt a rush of understanding why creators and consumers alike feel a deep love for companies like SoundCloud.  

Perhaps it’s the constantly fluctuating nature of my own attention to any given influence - friends, professional or personal interests, the companies that I love and listen to (sometimes literally) that makes this seem at once direct, yet distant. Though we are constantly in reach of all the music, media, art, literature, (etc., etc.,) that could be meaningful to us, it continues to amaze me when a direct connection is made between any combination of creator, influencer or consumer. The digital world is ever-more resembling, mapping even, the world we live in - the animate and dirty yet mathematical organic world. 

This morning, I came across this and felt even more fuzzy because Amen was involved:

I had been playing the Bass Farmers’ Avicci - Levels remix in the office on Friday, was really digging it and Amen’d it, which sent to Twitter.  Bass Farmers found it and one of the guys re-posted it to Facebook.  I am excited that something on Amen has gone out into the world and affected someone - and hopefully listeners/consumers as well.

 Amen is about the best and worst of everything.  When I listened to that song, I wanted to say something about it, so I did, on Amen.  Though our service is not currently directly connected to SoundCloud, I made the comment for two reasons: because it was exactly the sort of listening experience that makes me want to say, “This is the best ever! Amen!” and also because I thought maybe someone would be curious and find the song and Bass Farmers could get some extra exposure.  When I saw Matthew’s Facebook post this morning, it was another click for me - that Amen is beginning to make strands in the giant digital web - between consumers, creators, influencers, content and experiences. 

There are already many, many formats and iterations of social media services for personal expression and many others for curation, transmission and consumption - of course, I hope you’ll choose Amen (which is the best).  However, I believe that as the Internet and its companies grow and evolve, service usage will expand and contract on an individual basis. It doesn’t matter that Matthew from Bass Farmers found my comment about his song via Google nor that he may or may not care about Amen. The point is that I had an outlet to say what I wanted to say (Amen), I have a group of friends and listeners on Amen who may have discovered something new because of my comment, and most interestingly to me at the moment, that Amen was a format - an entry point - and my comment flew into the messy, wonderful digital sphere and landed somewhere.

I guess it didn’t hurt that the refrain is, “Sometimes I get a good feeling.”