Why I started The Storytelling Ring
April of 1997

I am part owner of a small storytelling business; Papa Joe’s Traveling Storytelling Show. I am also a mother of 3 children, Brownie-Girl Scout troop leader, and volunteer to organizations in my hometown of Derry, NH. The time I call my own is usually in the late evening hours after my children have gone to sleep. Trying to keep my children’s lives enriched with their own activities; softball, Girl Scouts, recitals, cheerleading, and piano lessons to name a few, “my time” was always shrinking. It was spent doing the work which I was supposed to magically have made the time for during the day. Yes, I know this plight is a shared one amongst most parents. I am not complaining just explaining.

Often, I would turn to the vast resources on the Internet to find the information I needed for my research and reports. Without exception, I would find what I was looking for. Unfortunately, it was not a quick process. We all know It’s out here...but where!??? As most do, I use the big search engines and try to be as precise as possible to limit the results. But when you consider the size of the Internet, the word LIMIT is greatly exaggerated. It would frustrate me to no end scrolling and paging through the lists of matches that, yes had that word I searched for, but came no where close to being what I needed. For point of example I did a search on “Excite” (just Excite not a multiple engine search) for Storytelling. I chose “Excite” for my example of search engines because it is my personal favorite. It offers a “more like this” option next to each site produced in the results. Unbelievably there were 14,269 matches!! “Do you want to narrow your search?”, it asked. Ack!

When the business was blessed with the opportunity to advertise on the Internet, we all jumped at the chance. Since I handle promotions, it was my concerns to make this ad successful. Together we created a website that presented a perfect representation of who we are and what we do. However, how was Mr. Librarian and Mrs. School Principal going to find us amongst the thousands? It was the subject to countless meetings and brainstorming sessions within our business. None of which resolved the problem. We all hated those flashy banners and we already added ourselves to every major search engine we found. So, we had no choice but to leave finding us up to happenstance.

Over time, Papa Joe made a lot of contacts and friends over the internet. Many of them were storytellers who shared in the frustrations of finding valuable resources out here. He added a link on our website dedicated to helping his friends find what they might need. He has named this site "A Cyber Storyteller’s Toolbox”. With the support and suggestions of other storytellers he has created a great collection of sites! Many of the storytellers who use his handy list had their own websites with great presentations of their own business. Several added links to Papa Joe’s toolbox from their sites. More Storytellers than ever before were now seeing our site and although meeting new tellers has increased our business through recommendations, the “advertisement” part of our page (my job) was still not very successful.

One night, when I was searching for gardening/planting tips for a Brownie meeting I was planning, I found a great site. Wanting more, I was about to return to the search results and use the option “more like this” when I noticed on this homepage these words: “This site is a Member of The Garden Web Ring. Click for Next Site”. I did and it took me right to another gardening page. WOW! What a great idea! It was just like an exclusive search engine. Already narrowed and customized with what I was looking for! I was more than intrigued and started looking into who was behind this concept.

I discovered it was WebRing. I learned how it was a totally free service! Perfect for any Storytellers’ budget. I called for a business meeting with my partners and presented the idea of creating a Ring for storytellers. Papa Joe shared the idea with his friends and they were as receptive as he. Not many understood the concept but everyone said, “That sounds great! Will you do it?” I was then dubbed Ringmaster.
At first I feared the name having some poetic indication of a circus of headaches and maintenance, but when I learned how much WebRing itself was doing for me, I have changed my outlook and now consider it an honor.

Thus, The Storytelling Ring was created. With the continued support of it’s founding members and the availability of the fantastic tools written by WebRing, I hope to maintain a Ring worthy of it’s name. No, Mr. Librarian or Mrs. School Principal still may not find our web site... or even yours amongst the thousands in their search results. However, you’ve already dedicated time and creative energy in planting yet another seed in this evergrowing garden of web resources. By joining this Ring, you can help in the tedious task of weeding. Just think of that precious time you have saved someone else. They find just one members’ site dedicated to the art of Storytelling and there they can “Click for Next Site” right onto your page. Every time another site joins in the ring your chances of being seen grows!

Smiles,

K~

PS: Today my favorite search engine is Google:
They offer a "cached" version of sites.
 This comes in handy since servers & sites move around so much.  Most search engines today have encompassed the  "more like this" option which was popularized by Excite .