I hated facebook. From afar of course because I wasn't particularly interested in using it. Then, inevitably, someone wanted me to get on facebook, so I did. I hated the interface and the aesthetics, and really wasn't interested in making a pointless 'this is who I am' page. <p>But then a few interesting things started happening, my friends started using these little facebook applications (oh how much I hate the installing software analogy they've gone with is a whole other post) and I started using them as well. Like in the olden days (ie last year) when someone found a fun flash game and sent you the link and you sent your scores back and forth. <p>Like all these social networking sites its asynchronous communication with a low social overhead (your friends just happen to see what you're doing) and with lots of stuff to do. I think its going to become the internet for a large proportion of the population.<p>It might get beaten eventually, but in the short term the biggest potential challenger is google. If google leveraged the gmail user base to make orkut bigger and integrated it with igoogle widgets, it'd be something approaching facebook. I think they are somewhat reluctant to do that to their user base though, although it could be done unobtrusively.
"Acquirers are less prone to irrational exuberance than IPO investors. The closest you'll get to Bubble valuations is Rupert Murdoch paying $580 million for Myspace. That's only off by a factor of 10 or so."<p>-- PG, circa Nov 2005<p>:)
"Facebook, which is used by over 40 million people to set up their own personal Web pages...has emerged as the poster child for the latest Internet wave."<p>Yes, the latest e-Wave to hit the the Beach of Interweb e-Shores.
Insane. Completely irresponsible. If I were a MSFT shareholder, I'd be pissed.<p>Just watch... Steve Ballmer will have some extremely hard time at the next shareholder meeting when questions start flying his way.
IN OTHER NEWS: Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were seen taking hits from a large bong outside the headquarters of the Redmond giant on Monday. <p>Ballmer was quoted as saying,"This wacky tobaccky is sooo good. Let's buy Dunkin Donuts for $20 billion! Mmmmm, donuts..." He then proceeded to do a Monkeyboy Dance, to the giggling delight of a baked Bill Gates. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc4MzqBFxZE" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc4MzqBFxZE</a>
somehow this doesn't feel right.<p>Google is nearly impossible to replicate where as social networks is and will always be a trend. Also people tend to use more than one of these social networks.<p>PG pondered once in one of his essays, if I remember correctly, that naturally myspace or any other current social network will not be the only one in the years to come.<p>update: "So in a hundred years the only social networking sites will be the Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and Del.icio.us? Not likely."
<a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html</a><p>
The internet population is already 1 billion. Thats plenty of people and opportunities.<p>Microsoft and Google with all that money should just buy all the startups they can and kill Facebook for good...<p>Or we should just expect the new "Norton" to invent the NEW anti-"socialnetwork"/virus
Fred says the 10billion is not real<p><a href="http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2007/09/facebook-really.html" rel="nofollow">http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2007/09/facebook-really.html</a>