Join The Now Media

Join. Now!

That’s one cool thing about the Now Media. You can join. Now.

Participate. Jump in.

  • Head for Blogger and start sharing your most passionate opinions.
  • Set up a Tumblr about something that matters to you.
  • Get on Twitter, but do it with a theme. Heck,if you really want to have fun, set up a fake Twitter. (Oh, wait. Did we just encourage you to violate Twitter’s TOS? IGNORE THAT LAST REMARK!)
  • Grab a cheap Web cam and start sharing your day as if it was a newscast on YouTube or Vimeo.
  • Storify something completely off the wall.
  • Start writing copy for affiliate products you sell on a Mix.com (free!) site.
  • Write “Burma Shave” style ad copy and post on your Facebook status.
  • Take photos of the strangest shoes you see each day and put them to Flickr.

See where this is going?

All that stuff is freeeeee.  You can self-educate at no cost to you (then call your cousin with 50k in student loans from “j-school” woo hoo).

And..and..and..

Every idea on that list has a purpose. A theme. A compelling reason for people to notice YOU.

A Terrifying Revelation

Here’s what’ll happen when you first join the Now Media:

Your initial efforts will sooook like a Huver!

If they didn’t, you wouldn’t be here, no?

But you will do the one thing most people neverrrrrr do: YOU WILL JOIN THE GAME!

Most people are spectators in the game of life. They’re the characters in the background of the reality show that is reality.

How DEADLY boring is that?

JOIN the Now Media. Take part. Contribute something. Show some spunk. Show some creativity.

Draw a mustache on your baby picture!

2 important secrets:

1.) That’s how people make it big these days. They take an idea, mix in creativity and put it out there. The magnetic forcefield that is the strange attractor known as “attention” always gets pointed at the unekzpected, the surprising, the novel.

As long as it’s good.

2.) Sorry. There is no 2. See #1. Just do something original and keep working at it until people start saying “That’s really …(whatever you’re looking for… “good,” “weird,” “scary,” “a little too purple,” whatever). You’ll know you’re on your way when they start noticing what you want them to notice.

3.) We had to hide this one under “3″ to confuse the s-p-i-e-s, but here comes some truthiness for ya: Being your own part of the Now Media is MUCH more fun than “making it big.”

But if you insist on trying to make it big, we got nothin’ to stop you.

Just don’t say we didn’t try to warn ya.

Now GO! GO!GO!GO!GO!GO!GO!GO!GO!GO!

DO IT! Then come back and figure out whether you want to:

- Tell stories
- Engage an audience
- Curate your slice of the world

In the meantime, we’ll keep building this place, brick by brick.

We want you to JOIN the Now Media. And we want to help you …err, make it big.

Have fun and thanks for stopping by the new Ames Media Institute.