Online, the ways we communicate have proliferated. While we put back the Lucire reader forum earlier this year, it isn’t as popular as it was when we first launched it four years ago. And no wonder: there are readers hopping off to Facebook and the like, or frequenting the blogs that Summer Rayne Oakes or I do—though at some point, I imagine we’ll find that we are getting too distracted and want a single site that does it all.
   I mentioned yesterday that I didn’t feel comfortable putting Lucire on to MySpace as it would make us look like a Murdoch Press outpost. No disrespect to Mr Murdoch—maybe I am a tad too proud. Or that I just can’t navigate MySpace, so if I can’t, then I have selfishly judged that no one else can. (It didn’t stop me from acceding to requests and setting up a page, trying to tidy the darned thing as much as my limited knowledge allowed.)
   However, I am not too proud to put Lucire on to Facebook. The increase in users can’t be ignored and it seems better geared toward the sharing of ideas than MySpace. Facebook has plenty of special-interest groups, from one trying to get 1,000,000 people against Hillary Clinton (it’s not just for Republicans: it encourages Barack Obama supporters to get on board, too) to ones dealing with new media or graphic design.
   The group has been there for a few weeks but it’s in the last few days that I asked friends to join, so the membership has climbed quickly to nearly 100. I’d love for more readers to come on by and have organized a tiny link on the Lucire web edition home page.
   To me, it is an experimentation in Web 2·0 but there is a genuine purpose. Both Sylvia Giles (Lucire deputy ed.) and I frequent Facebook, so if you want to suggest stories, we will genuinely consider them. It is an idealized democracy—you know, one that actually works, where the people running the place will listen to your suggestions. Feel free to pop by. Posted by Jack Yan, 13:23  permalink

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