For every person who wants to believe that facebook is the biggest thing since word-of-mouth, there is someone equally hoping the whole thing collapses in on itself.<p>Each party wants their outcome so passionately it's hard to believe that anyone can look at the data with a neutral frame of reference.
The fundamental problem with social networking as it currently stands is that the advertisements are a distraction rather than being synergistic with the sites workflows. I used to use facebook to communicate with second-tier acquaintances (before realizing why I didn't really communicate with them in the first place)<p>If I want to buy something I have a pretty good idea of what I want (hard to draw thenwindow shoppers to an online store). That being said I will go and search ( google, not a social network )
I have heard from a friend in the hotel business that the majority of the leads they get from Facebook are from Facebook messages (meaning friends telling one another about the hotel). The other efforts they've made with advertising and marketing have pretty much fallen flat.
There maybe a huge informal sector within Facebook. My older sister tells me she goes to Facebook to see pictures of merchandise from her friends before going to their house to buy stuff.