Pre-Depression Picture Goes Global
Posted by Keith Elder | Posted in General, Internet | Posted on 18-02-2009
This past weekend I posted an article entitled “Pre-Depression”. Within that blog post was a picture that inspired me to write the article. Since the article was published the picture within the article has gone global. Who knew a picture taken with a Blackjack II Windows Mobile phone would be seen by thousands of people across the Internet. If you haven’t read the blog article the picture was originally in, I do encourage you to read the back story about the picture. The picture first got picked up on Digg.Com. Throughout the day it started to climb and then made the home page of Digg which drove crazy numbers of people to the photo, and then ultimately this blog.
Yesterday evening I was contacted by Laura Conaway of NPR’s Planet Money and was asked to be interviewed on the phone about the photo. You can listen to the interview online at their website.
Since the photo was taken it has been viewed by over 138,000 people at this point, just on Flickr. That doesn’t count all the web sites that copied the photo and reproduced it on their site.
The blog article has been read over 12,500 times since Saturday.
Why all the noise over a photo? I think it has to do with timing, the economy and also something we are all too scared to hear, the word “depression”. You know the really crazy thing about the sign in the photo? It has been up for about a year I learned through one commenter on my blog. Who knows, maybe the store owner is a prophet.
Thanks Glen, very nice comment.
Keith, that’s absolutely amazing. I have to tell you, if I’d been driving around and heard you on NPR on my radio (instead of on their website), I would have had to pull over and stare slackjawed at the radio.
Certainly, you were in the right place at the right time. But more than that, you’re an insightful guy, so you’ve managed to put this experience (not just of seeing the sign but of glancing at its image on your phone while driving) into a whole other context. Bravo, dude!