I can't imagine who else these visitors would be, other than friends of Steve (why don't they log in and say hi?). For all I know he may have many friends checking in with him here. I don't know.
This is a very interesting point. i do not know how many people others have invited to this site but i invite people daily. Many of them do check out the site. Many of them join. Few communicate here. You cannot make people communicate the way you want. You (Brock) and SI have an interest in the internet because you work with it day in and day out. However i do not see your closest friends and associates communicating here in abundance. We often have to accept others on other terms since they serve important functions in our lives. Many people r frustrated with the internet... posts that disappear... passwords that r lost... computers that do not work for one reason or another.... scams... etc. Many people r tied into old ways of communication that friends may have had for years and years. This does not stop them from becoming members here and looking in from the outside.
i wish it could b different but this world is not set up according to my dictates. i see friends who have faded out of my life because they just would not meet me part of the way with my requests for communicating here. They still 'Do not do the internet thing or the forum thing.' It is quite like saying 'I don't do the phone thing' when phones first came into use. i have always seen myself as open to new inventions and new and progressive ways of doing things. However not everyone feels that way. i have found that many many people do not. With a new generation may come a new way of viewing communication. This too will someday be out dated. However for present purposes it is a satisfactory way to bring many people together with common interests and to communicate in numbers whereas phone calls, letters and meeting people are much more limited in practical terms of availability and sheer numbers of friends.
There is one more point here which i feel may be the most important point of all. We are but a zephyr blowing in on the western horizon. However we r part of a great pioneering movement. This movement will be like a mighty wind in times to come. Like any pioneering movement it is yet limited in numbers. Yet we are privileged to b able to see towards the future and represent it now.
