This quarter, I have been writing about ways to make the Internet more useful than it sometimes appears to be. Aside from all of the great and informative sites and tools that are available, there is one other way to make the Internet better for everyone: do it yourself.
Everyone has something he is intensely interested in or that he knows more about than most people. The Internet gives everyone an opportunity to share that interest and knowledge with everyone else. Here’s how:
Start your own weblog
Sure, there are a lot of weblogs already out there, but most of them are about people doing their laundry or half thought out rants about relationships gone bad.
There are a few, though, that focus on something the writer or writers know about, and some of them have become standards for their subjects. One way for you to add to the good things the Internet has to offer is to start a weblog where you write regularly about something you know or a cause you support. Keep it factual and focused, and you could become a go-to for the subject.
Use social media for something useful
Facebook, MySpace and Twitter can all be outstanding tools for sharing information and making people aware of ideas and causes they might not otherwise come in contact with. The critical factors in making social media work this way are the same ones that make good weblogs work: keep it factual and keep it focused.
Help Wikipedia become better
Most of us have probably heard that Wikipedia is not supposed to be used as a source because of its unreliability. Unfortunately, that attitude has helped ensure that Wikipedia does not improve in the ways it could. You can change that by bringing another set of eyes and attention to the facts to “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.” It can’t improve without you.