Wednesday, March 9, 2011

"Wellstone-esque?" The power of social media

Interfering with Traffic from Jay Mallin on Vimeo.


When I put this video up on Vimeo the response was surprising — in one day more than a thousand viewers watched it. Almost two weeks later it's still attracting over a hundred a day. That's not much by cat-antics-on-YouTube standards. But it's pretty good for a video of more than five minutes that deals with pedestrians and urban design.

The response to "Interfering with Traffic" came thanks to the many websites and blogs, both local and national, that posted it and tweeted it, including TBD.com, Grist, and Streetsblog, along with others from Seattle to New York. It was fun to read the discussions it sparked in places like GreaterGreaterWashington, too.

Even better, though, was the comment of another blog, StrongTowns, that also posted it. They said "our Minnesota readers may enjoy the guy in the video, who has a subtle Wellstone-esque quality to him."

"Wellstone-esque?" As a I remember, the late senator was bald and short. Still, I'll take the intended compliment!