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Journalists lead interesting lives, their work takes them to unique places even in the local setting. This is a life that most of us will never know beyond what we see on the news and in the papers.

However, I have found that technology allows us to dig a bit deeper and have a stronger experience than traditional media. Consider this scenario:

Last week dynamIt was interviewed about StartUp Weekend Columbus, which was held over the weekend at TechColumbus. We were talking rather informally with the reporter and the camera man while they setup in our office. We developed a good rapport with the camera man and so I began following him on Twitter (@AndYL_WCMH).

Andy is an avid Twitter user and often tweets (to use the parlance of our times) from his mobile phone while on the job. For example, the day after the dynamIt interview, Andy was down in Cincinnati to shoot an interview with presidential hopeful John McCain. Twitter received periodic updates of the trip, including a few camera phone pics.

Meanwhile, back in the office, I was following along via Twitter, and I could not help but feel almost as if I were there standing right next to Andy as he was at work. When I watched this story on the news I recalled the behind-the-scenes story told by Andy via Twitter. I was captivated by this story because I knew how it came about. I got so much more out of a simple news program because it was supported by web and mobile technology.

The homepage of our website reads the following:

“We are passionate about web and excited by new trends and web technologies.”

We received an e-mail from someone who had visited the dynamIt site after seeing Nick and Dan on NBC 4 news last week. In his e-mail, this gentlemen informed us that we had a typographical error right on our homepage. He claimed that it should read, “We are passionate about the web…” We quickly thanked him for looking out for us, but confirmed that it is as we have intended.

At StartUp Weekend Columbus this past weekend the same gentlemen approached me about the exact same issue insisting that we were wrong. I was not looking for an argument so I smiled and said something along the lines of “it makes sense to us, we see web as not just a singular object, but as a much larger concept.” But, this man was not convinced. He claimed that it is grammatically incorrect and that the language makes zero sense to the average person. He told me that from a marketing standpoint using this language will just confuse our potential customers and they will not want to work with us.

The audacity of my inquisitor encouraged a range of emotions, but I stayed cool and sincerely thought about what he said. In certain contexts does it sound silly to use the word ‘web’ without the definite article preceding it? Why is it that I left the article off when I originally wrote that blurb for our front page? Why does it sound so natural as it is? What is (the) web, really?

To me, the web is not an object, it is not a thing you use, it is not a place you go. Rather, web is an idea. The web is does not exist to do to a denumerable number of tasks. I do not use the web to just do x, y, and z. Sure, you may just need to do x, and we can help you with that too, but we see web as an endless array of possibilities. When you work with dynamIt we want to open up all of these paths to you. Every application we’ve built is different than the last and every one in the future will be different still. This is what keeps us passionate and engaged. Each project we work on is its own unique little puzzle that we receive great pleasure in solving.

So, within a matter of minutes I was able to craft this argument.

“What is the definition of a noun?” I asked, to which I received the response, “a person, place, or thing.”

“Well, yes,” I said, “but, there is one type of noun that you are forgetting. A noun is defined as a person, place, thing, or idea.” He complied.

Next, I asked, “give me an example of some other nouns that represent ideas.” He responded quickly with two: philosophy and chemistry.

I concluded, “Does it not makes sense if I say, ‘We are passionate about philosophy’? When referring to the subject as a whole, Would you ever say, ‘We really enjoy the chemistry’?”

So, what does everyone think? What is (the) web, really? Did I win the argument? Or, is dynamIt just a little bit crazy? Comment below.