But great links, thanks. And sure, we can always bring the passion level down in any argument or observation, but neutralizing the issue won’t get any progress made.

My main point is that we must push ourselves to expand our creativity outwards, and pull new inspiration inwards. It is up to us to marry the world of highly literate people in the traditional sense of literacy, and the newly literate mavens in technology. The internet is built on languages and is shaped by human behavior. My instincts tell me that if we could get more writers hooked up with more social media people and vice versa, the internet, education, literacy and e-literacy will spread more quickly and efficiently. And yes, that is my evil plot, to get the world reading and get them on-line.

Very simple.

But I’m not subscribing to that theory, either. I think getting your work published in any medium involves a lot of risk-taking behavior. Besides, “writers” is a broad label…even if you limit it to those people whose main income is generated by what they write; it still leaves a very, very large pool. Consider journalists, technical writers, copywriters, speech writers, freelance writers, analysts, editors…I’ll bet a considerable number of them are active in social media channels, or at least active in those channels in proportion to the overall population of folks in other occupations who have broadband access, own their own up-to-date PCs, take the time to explore the Internet, and are confident enough to participate in the on-line conversation.

Perhaps the mavens are simply the early adopters/innovators on the social media curve while the “writers” as you’ve generally characterized them are the laggards. That’s not to say the “writers” won’t eventually come up the curve. After all, even luddites now carry cell phones.

Also, what type of literacy are you referring to when you say “But together, I think we can raise the level of literacy across all platforms and cultures. And, as we all know, more literacy means more peace.” Do you mean the ability to read and write or are you talking something like awareness and understanding across diverse cultures?

If you’re talking the ability to read and write, I’d like to think that getting more writers to consume social media would raise the level of literacy. But, I think that the issue of literacy is rooted in something far more complex than that. Doesn’t literacy correlate highly with socio-economic status and not how many writers use the newest medium to discover creative material or reach an audience?

I do believe that awareness and understanding of diverse cultures, races and ethnicities and embracing the fact that you are part of a global community that includes these diverse groups leads to greater tolerance and respect between groups. It reduces the fear of the unknown which, I believe, is really the root cause of prejudice and discrimination and the violent behavior that too often ensues.

Getting more people to participate in social media may expose participants to diversity and foster relationships that span that diversity, but only within the segment of the population that already has access to social media tools. What about those that don’t have technology—PCs and Internet access—at their fingertips? In many ways, these are the folks that need awareness and understanding the most. I’m just not sure that I follow how getting more writers to use social media will address that situation.

More food for thought on the topic of blending writers and social media…Here’s Robert Frost’s ideas on fences. This is “Mending Wall.” If you go to http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/poems/jan-june02/fences_6-26.html# there’s a video of former poet laureate Robert Pinksy reading it.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
‘He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall
That wants it down.’ I could say -Elves to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

I am a 35 year old author and recently released my first novel, Burnt Popcorn And Cheap Perfume. Iam not old, not exactly young, but I am internet and myspace addict. I consider myself
to be technologically educated. I’ve worked in the Information Technology field most of my life.

As we know writers come from all walks of life. There will be some who embrace the marketing potentials of the internet and others who refuse to participate.

I do find the comment funny about the book trailer, since I brought up that topic in a writing group just a week or two ago. It’s not that I am against technology with regards to
the book trailer. I just find it to be an absurd concept, considering it is not going to do shit for an unknown beginner author like myself. Writing is an entirely different medium.
The only authors who may have people take notice of their work due to a trailer are the big name authors who do not need them in the first place.