(Investigate to enter** here:
Satisfy your curiosity by buying your very own copy of the book here.)
I can't wait to be far enough along to help another author on his or her first time out, someday. . . .
Dipping my foot into the online social networking sea has been astonishing. It is an understatement to say that I have been living in a vacuum. I don't know which is more amazing--the potential reach of Facebook and Twitter as tools, the characters that brought them to the world, or the concept of it all working in concert--the synergy.
Mentioning the subject to a neighbor elicited laughs. My neighbor said it was no wonder that no one commented, because the issue is of monumental scope. To at least better understand how Facebook came into being, he suggested watching the motion picture movie The Social Network.
I was riveted to the jilted, ex-Napster remix. As it ended, my delicate sensibilities instinctively pondered the likelihood of catching elitist, back stabbing, cyber clap by attempting to use the Facebook account that I had surmounted my paranoid inhibitions to earlier sign up for. When I asked my sister what would possess someone to make such a film, she suggested in a word, "revenge."
Despite hoping for like-for-like comparison in researching my original questions, there is no such motion picture drama by which to compare the founding of Twitter to that of Facebook. It is also clear that I cannot literally print a coupon off a tweet, which is a perk on some Facebook sites. Although, I might find some nice things by clicking a tiny URL on a tweet when I trust the site where I land.
Twitter reminded me of the way the heroine of the motion picture movie Stealing Beauty--the daughter of a deceased poetess, who has clearly inherited her mother's gift--burns her spontaneous stanza as kernel of creativity that is just for her. On the other hand, a venerable business development specialist for publishing group was using Twitter to host a guest interview with question and answer session!
Less abstractly, it turns out that the spirit of my inquiry about facebooking and tweeting is not new. Some Twitter fans addressed it in honest fashion. There was also an interesting and more technical take. In trying to be fair, it actually took some doing to hunt down a likely Facebook fan take on the subject; that platform has such vast membership that perhaps its fans feel little need to delve into the matter.
