Last night, as I often do, I was searching for something to add to the blog. I ran across a landmine related post on a website called Nowpublic.com where people can post their own news stories or links to existing ones with commentary.

I quickly became a member and posted a story I had found on Myanmar landmine victims with a photo from Erin Fredrich's trip to the Mae sot clinic.

The result was that the editor of the site, Mark Schneider, found my post and emailed me... we then spoke on the phone about the power of social networks in social activism and... well... he is much more articulate than I, so please read his post on our conversation... here is an excerpt:

Last night, James discovered NowPublic. By 3:30am, Vermont time, he posted his first story.

By 4:30am PDT, I discovered James.

I got to meet Thien, Colvin and Chi, through their pictures at Flickr.

My world had changed, in an important, fundamental way.

The marvel of networks

At NowPublic, we talk a lot about the power of social networks. We marvel at the success of YouTube, the weird goings-ons at MySpace, and the recent turmoil at Facebook. It's all exciting, entertaining, and important. We're proud to be part of how the web is changing the world.

But this early morning introduction to Clear Path produced an early morning epiphany for me - and as we all know, in the dark of the night these insights come with extraordinary force.

Read the rest of Mark's post here.