- Welcome to Cyberbeader's blog! -

I finally combined two of my long-term interests: creating bead jewelry and using the Internet. I have been beading ever since I was a teen, and sold bead jewelry at a street market in the early 1990s. Now I launched my own website (well, actually, it was my SO - he knows much more about the nuts and bolts and gears of the net than I do), as well as an eBay store. Above is an example of my current work - a bracelet of shells, freshwater pearls and sterling silver.

Recently, I have been thinking how much the WWW has changed our lives. A little over a decade ago, it would have been impossible for me to start this type of business - I would have had to buy mailing lists, advertise in magazines, etc. - all at a much greater cost. Now I can potentially reach millions of customers. I also no longer have to be out in the heat of a Central Texas summer, or argue with a city bureaucrat about what exatly I may or may not sell at a particular street market.
The World Wide Web has certainly been a tool of empowerment, allowing many people to open virtual stores at a fraction of the cost of a brick-and-mortar business, while being able to stay at home.
I remember when the WWW was small and rudimentary, and Yahoo had a weekly list of newly added sites... on a nice grey background. I even remember the first commercial spam that appeared in numerous usenet groups and caused an enormous angry reaction. How innocent these days seem now.
Nowadays, I receive a steady stream of scam e-mails asking me to send items to various overseas countries, offering me much more money than I requested (one particularly absurd scammer even offered $1,200 for a $25 bracelet, so she could give it as a gift to "her Lord Reverend"). This is the dark side of the net - scams, phishing, spam and all the other terms we had not even imagined a decade ago. This is also why quite a number of people I know are actually afraid of going online, and particularly of buying anything. Of course the savvy internet user can avoid these pitfalls, but many newbies will get discouraged by them.

Well, we will have to take the good with the bad, and overall it is still a fascinating time to live and work in.
I hope you enjoy these random ruminations, and will come back for more of my musings, on life, work and the net.

Cyberbeader
http://www.lovebeadsunlimited.com