SUCH AS FACEBOOK (September 30, 2008)

When I told my son Marko that I would wish my writings to be more easily accessible to readers far and wide, he suggested two things. First he urged me to shift the website with my writings into blogging format, which would increase the probability that someone surfing through the World Wide Web would stumble upon it. And then he suggested that I join one of the social networks on the Internet, such as Facebook, which would further increase the probability of contact with the readers worth having. That was more than a year ago. I followed his first suggestion rather quickly, but I felt uncomfortable with the second. Until a few weeks ago, that is. Will Hughes very much agreed with Marko, and he helped me set up a Facebook account during his visit to Motovun. No matter how reluctant, I succumbed in the end. Now I have a growing bunch of friends, and I occasionally exchange a few words or photos with them. So far, so good. Except that I am ever less convinced in the usefulness of my emerging social network in finding readers worth having. To begin with, most of the babble on any social network cannot be but just that—mere babble. More important, I would need millions upon millions of friends to find those few I am actually looking for. No matter how big, or how fast in growing, Facebook now strikes me as too small and too slow for my lofty purposes. At least I tried, I keep telling myself.