* facebook: the town-meeting of the digital colonies

No Yuks for Zuck

So Mark Zuckerberg, the 26-year-old billionaire Harvard graduate and founder of facebook, doesn't like The Social Network, a film about his digital creation, because it depicts him as human: Ambitious, power-seeking.


Worse things to be accused of.


At first I ignored facebook.

Then I opened a page just for the heck of it. I use it mostly to advertise this blog, The Anti-Yale and my latest posts.


Recently though, as I've added friends to my wall (which I admit I have done VERY sparingly), I've been surprised and comforted by small interactions with people I haven't seen in years.


An even more endearing feature has been the creation of albums. I put 75 photos in one album for my nephew to look at and he started tagging them. Since he has lived 3000 miles away from my East Coast world all of his life, this was a kind of virtual old time "flipping through the album together" type of experience.


And then, surpise of surprises,  facebook becomes a 21st Century Society Page for the Egalitarian World : My nephew announces his engagement on facebook and sends photos to the world of the  bride-to-be and the ring, within hours of the presentation event!


I found this very satisfying.


In short, I'm a facebook convert and now fan----whether or not it feeds Mr. Zuckerberg's ambition and thirst for power.

BTW----an NPR program today credits facebook with starting a South American protest movement, getting Betty White her hosting gig on Saturday Night Live,  and with breaking the real facts about the horrific fate of New Orleans' residents after the government's incompetent reaction to Hurricane Katrina.


Facebook may already be the town meeting of the digital colonies.


Who knows what it may become as we continue to erect On-line realities? (So long, that is, as the Net remains egalitarian and democratic: An avenue of freedom.)

And that, I believe, is Mr. Zuckerberg's true ambition.

PS
   A colleague who has a facebook page cannot access my page and I cannot access his page, even though other people access both of our facebook pages with no problem.  Could it be because he has Apple apps and I have Windows?  Any help would be appreciated.