Facebook as a cloud (as in computing)

My crack research team always makes a good faith effort to let someone know when we've featured their story or picture or design or what have you in bookofjoe.

More often than not our best efforts fail.

For reasons that continue to confound me, most newpapers and magazines do not provide a writer's direct email address, so there's no way to give them a heads-up or hat tip or any feedback whatsover.

Oh, sure, you can write to their parent publication but the chance of that being forwarded to an individual is about equal to that of your winning the next Powerball lottery.

Anyway, in a continuing effort to do better, it occurred to me about six months ago that it might be worth a shot to see if people had a Facebook entry and then send a message via that website.

Bingo.

I've reached and heard back via Facebook from writers for the New York Times, Washington Post and several other sources with whom I otherwise could not connect.

Try it, you might like it.