Why I Love The Internet
A magical thing happened the other night. The super hyped cliff hanger episode of Shortland Street aired with the obligatory disaster (fire this year!) and viewers were invited to visit shortlandstreetclues.co.nz to see clues on mystery main character who had perished.
The problem? Nobody had registered that URL. It should have read shortlandstreetclues.tvnz.co.nz but when the ad went on air, it didn’t. It was missing the all important .tvnz in the address.
A user on Geekzone couldn’t believe his luck when, after checking the advertised URL and finding no site there, also found out nobody had even purchased the domain. And what happened next is why I love the internet.
After taking suggestions from the forums on what to do with the URL, he (or she, though let’s be honest, it’s Geekzone – statiscally it’s he) choose not to redirect people to porn, post an offensive image, direct people to download a virus or trojan for his own gain. He didn’t even put ads on the site to generate revenue for himself. He just chucked up a YouTube meme of a Russian entertainer singing the unofficial theme song of the internet troll. Purely for laughs. Not offensive, not for profit, just for giggles.
And that’s why, in spite of all the negative news coverage of the typical heavy web user, I love the internet.
