Friday’s Flea Market Finds – Space Tourism, Need For Speed, The Internet Archive

I want to start this post off with an apology.  Since May, my posting here has been very sporadic.  I’ve been dealing with an issue with this site, the site itself would load fine, but for whatever reason, I couldn’t access the backend and the admin panel.  Which meant I couldn’t publish new posts. It’s now reached a point where I can at least access it intermittently, so I will go back to posting as much as I can.

Today I wanted to start a new series called Friday’s Flea Market Finds. I live in the rural South, and flea markets have always had a special place in this area of the country. Some of my favorite memories of childhood are making the trek to Ripley, Mississippi with my family for First Mondays.  Once a month, on the First Monday (and weekend preceding it) there would be a massive flea market in Ripley, MIssissippi.  Miles and miles of complete crap, with the occasional treasure mixed in that made the entire trip worthwhile.

If you think about it, the internet is kinda like one big flea market.  There’s a ton of crap that you don’t care about, but occasionally you will come across an absolute treasure.  Friday’s Flea Market Finds will be about sharing some of the treasure that I’ve come across. Let’s dig in:

NASA’s Space Tourism Approach to Exoplanets

We've discovered more than 5,000 planets beyond our solar system. Each exoplanet is a whole new world to explore and now we have guided tours of some of the most exotic destinations in our galaxy! Each one is based on real science. https://t.co/fJvd5gJmk7 pic.twitter.com/80y0TCkvVz

— NASA Exoplanets (@NASAExoplanets) July 5, 2022

I love this idea. The concept and execution is great, and this is a wonderful way to get kids excited about NASA and space. If you are a 10 year-old seeing these posters, it’s entirely possible that within your lifetime, you may actually travel to another planet.  So this idea of space tourism is far-fetched, but not so far-fetched that it’s unbelievable.  But more than anything, it’s smart marketing and positioning by NASA to build interest and education in its space exploration efforts.

The Need for Speed

“Nature does not hurry, but everything is accomplished”, love this article on the importance mass plays in creating and sustaining momentum, by ⁦@nateliason⁩ https://t.co/yD1CPZ0Sjg

— Mack Collier (@MackCollier) July 5, 2022

I love this article by Nat Eliason. There are two components of creating and sustaining momentum; Mass and velocity.  When it comes to social media, it’s far too easy to focus on velocity.  Everything needs to be fast.  Get the content out, consume the content fast.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

But it’s just as important to focus on mass.  In terms of content, mass comes from creating a body of work that has weight, that has value.  That creates it’s own contribution to momentum, and its own sense of gravity. People are drawn to good content, and a body of work is even more attractive.  Check out Nat’s article and blog.  Good stuff here.

The Internet Archive

The Internet Archive and The Wayback Machine have been OG favorites of mine.  But I don’t think a lot of people realize what an insane amount of FREE content is available on the site.

Movies.  Live music.  Vintage video games. If you get on Internet Archive and can’t find some form of content that’s interesting to you, then I don’t know what to tell you.  It’s literally a flea market of content. Sure, there will be a lot of content you have no interest in, but there will also likely be a ton of stuff that you do, and most of it will be stuff you haven’t been able to find anywhere else.

So that’s it for this week’s Flea Market Finds. I hope to be back on Monday with the Marketing Minute, hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, try to stay cool out there, y’all!