Today marks the exact day of the first YouTube video ever uploaded to the YouTube website.

Once you read all the interesting “tidbits” about YouTube five years ago and today, you may (like me) find yourself wondering… “Why didn’t I think of doing that?”

Opportunity comes from the oddest places and the strangest ideas. So, if you get one of those “it will never work” thoughts, try following through. You just might end up with a piece of internet real estate on your hands that some entity, like Google, wants to snap up.

Traditionally, Black Friday (coming soon!) means hordes of individuals, fresh from a stomach-stuffing meal the day before, head out to the malls to shop, shop, shop until they drop.

But what if this year things went differently?

If you’ve been online for any length of time, you are sure to have frequented many a website with incredible sales of their own. Everything from discounted electronics to hand-made items are readily available online. People just like you with products and bargains.

Why not work time saving, gas saving (and hence the environment), and money saving into your holiday spending this year… shop online and support your favorite web site owner or your favorite blogger. Take some time before Black Friday and see if what you’re looking for doesn’t already exist – online – and not via some corporate entity.

It’s truly worth you time, there are many amazing deals out there (!), and you would be supporting individuals, friends, and maybe even family by frequenting these shop online websites.

For many, this year is going to be scarce pickings on Thursday. A grassroots effort to help support your fellow online product and/or service provider could make all the difference.

“Food” for thought.

I owe a huge thank you to everyone who visits regularly, and comments often, on this blog! It’s been a chore trying to reconstruct (I won’t bore you with the details, you can read the comments of the previous post for that), and I think I’ve run almost to the end of being able to put it all back together again.

A special thanks goes out to the clients of My Wizard Ads, the participants at CommentExchange, readers and visitors from Twitter and Entrecard, all my other social media communities (sorry too numerous to list!), and those coming here from the Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and more.

Sort of an Academy Award speech there, but I am touched that so many have given me words of encouragement and/or place their faith and trust in me (particularly those over at Whole Hog Blogs).

Now to get over to the forum and start paying some of my visitors in return!