William Shatner takes on Facebook

An exercise in taking yourself out of, well, yourself is to follow William Shatner on Twitter.

It's not merely that he tries to end each of his tweets with the touching personalized sign-off, "My best, Bill." It's that Twitter.com/William Shatner is so darned revelatory.

A few days ago, the Kirk with the smirk offered this tweet: "Help us build www.MYOUTERSPACE.com to be the best that it can! Your feedback is priceless; you don't want to miss this. My best, Bill."

Good Lord, I thought. Has the captain bought himself a little outer space for people to join him on a celestial plane? Well, yes. Myouterspace.com is, to quote its own starry words "a sci-fi social network for those with a passion for the arts."

Shatner, a wily entrepreneur, is looking for people who want to enjoy a career in the ever-growing field of science fiction. He is looking to bring actors, writers, animators, gamers, and other modern artists together in order to create projects of various future-focused genres.

The site has six "Starships," which appear to act like virtual production companies. Shatner declares on the Myouterspace's home page that he "will be monitoring all Starship projects, and reviewing each Captain's Log, where progress will be recorded each step of the way."

In the remarkably uplifting video on the site, Shatner says he is looking for lovers of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. He claims he wants to aim for the stars.

Clearly, though, he is aiming for Facebook, too.

Now that Facebook has become the place where the profane, the mundane, the marginally insane and their parents all attempt to meet, Shatner clearly sees that those of refined sensibilities--and who could claim a finer form of refinement than those who live in and for the future?--need their own social network in which to commune.

Myouterspace.com might very soon be the place where the future is created and law enforcement agencies seek hints on how to combat outerworldly threats.