Popular Wealth

Fork Fear

Although, today forks as dining accessories have gained profound popularity among people, there was a time when these forks where considered to be scandalous. That’s right! Way back in the middle ages, the use of forks was considered to be scandalous. The prime reason being the death of a Greek princess, who died shortly after she introduced forks during her wedding ceremony. Back then, it was interpreted as being a divine punishment.

While forks found their usage in Italy right in the 11 century, it began to be used in France and England much later. In fact, forks in England came in vogue only after a book by Thomas Coryat named, “Coryat’s Curdities Hastily gobbled up in Five Months Travels in France, Savoy, Italy, &c”. There have also been wide evidences, suggesting the nominal use of forks in Spain in the 16^th century. Records show the existence of only one man, the Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts, in the whole of colonial America, to possess the first and only fork.

Long before forks had been introduced, it was only wooden spoons and knives that where used as an alternative for eating with hands. Today these split spoons or forks as they are better known, are available in all sorts of varieties from three-tined to four and even five-tined ones.

I first took notice of thoughts.com in January and had an instant feeling the site was going to do well. Fast forward to today, May 19th, 2008, and sure enough the site is reaching its stride. A quick look in the forums shows an extremely active following right now. So what is this site all about?

• You can create blog posts
• Share Photos & Videos
• Share Music Files & Podcasts
• Post in the Forums
• Discuss Current News
• Meet New People

Thoughts.com is a 100% free online blog community that is quickly evolving into a full fledged social media site by offering all of the extras people want in a free blog service. The user rating system allows for rating of blog posts and provides a sense of pride when your peers enjoy your writings.

The most active members are rewarded with travel and vacations, last year the paid trip was to Las Vegas. Talk about going all out to reward your members! Theres also an ongoing writing contest and if you can imagine a cool feature you’d like to see, it’s probably already in place and if it’s not, the admins enjoy getting feedback and improving the service, they call it the think tank.

Thoughts.com donates to several charities as well. If you visit the site you’ll also notice the complete lack of advertising, you’re not hounded by ads on every page. In fact I couldn’t find a single ad during my visits. The designers are concerned with building the site properly and not overly worried about monetizing it right now despite its large userbase.

Blog posts can be shared with the entire community by chosing to publish as public. The community offers a built in readership which isn’t available to someone starting their own site. One of the benefits to that is instant readers who want to read what you write. The site does not allow affiliate links or blatant advertising of your other sites which is leading to a rather pure blogging environment.

Hats off to the founders, you’ve got a good thing going on with thoughts.com!