My Second Social Media Birthday

Friday, September 12th, 2008 5:52 pm from The Jeff Pulver Blog by jeff
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Topics: media 2.0

Yes, today is my birthday. And today I am experiencing my second “Social Media Birthday.”

Growing up, I was someone who celebrated birthdays. I believed that birthdays mattered. (I still do.) And whenever I knew it was someones birthday I would wish that person a Happy Birthday. As I got older I ran into people who didnt celebrate birthdays and after a while I just got used to that. But in my mind, birthdays were always a special day and a chance to catch up with some of the people in my life whose presence I appreciated but for some reason I didnt spend that much time talking to them during the course of the year. Birthdays were never really about the presents. It was about sharing presence.

With the advent of Social Media, the way I experience my birthday has changed.

Thanks to Facebook and twitter, birthdays matter again!

One of my morning rituals has been to log into Facebook and check whose birthday it is. When possible, I send friends a personal birthday greeting. I was better doing this before I reached the 5,000 friend limit on Facebook, but I try to do this as often as I can. (And I will try to do this more often after today.)

When I woke up this morning and logged into Facebook, I was taken back by the number of personal messages I had received and the number of people who commented on one of my recent status updates. I am still overwhelmed from receiving so many warm greetings from friends from around the world. I dont have the words to reflect the true feeling and emotions that are touched by this. These past few days Ive been feeling some emotional highs and lows and Im now feeling the golden glow from my friends around the world. I am humbled by this. I thank my friends for reaching out and making today a special day for me.

My friend Chris Brogans Happy Birthday blog post to me and subsequent twitter about it just added to the wave of people of people who sent birthday greetings to me. Chris is the same person who was responsible (together with Chris Penn) for putting together an amazing birthday video for me back in 2006. It was that video that give me a foreshadowing about how social media can have a positive effect on our lives.

The evolving world of Social Media continues to provide opportunity for people to connect and communicate in ways which just never happened before.

Special thanks to everyone who reached out to me and sent their birthday greetings.

I hope my friends have also have a chance to experience the positive effects of Social Media and community.

While I know I’m getting older, I still feel the same inside and I don’t think that I ever really want to grow up. As we get older we have more responsibilities but we have also have a wider and deeper perspective about life. So while I may be a year older and maybe a little wiser, I hope to continue to be the person I am today and whenever possible, continue to share some fun along the way.

Thanks for making today a special day.