Facebook will continue to grow well into 2008. MySpace tripled after News Corp. bought it and its growth remains impressive. But let’s face it, Facebook today is becoming a sea of crap: too many applications with little utility, too much noise and less and less value. In fact, it’s become a lot of the things that MySpace-haters disliked about MySpace.
I won’t get into the details yet, but I see MySpace managing their sheer size and growth by making some moves and taking some steps that add a lot of value to it, whereas Facebook has gone off the cliff and becoming a cacophony of crap. And, because Mark Zuckerberg thinks he’s a cross between MSFT/Google (platform) and Apple (the next Steve Jobs), he’s hell bent on remaining on the sidelines and not cleaning up the mess, “we’re neutral” he said at Tech Crunch 40.
Well, don’t be. I agree that I should be able to ban all apps. Call me a Luddite if you want, but I don’t want to be poked, let alone super poked. I don’t even know what the normal, natural reaction to a poke is…
Beyond the commercial / product things that need improving and the search for a business model, I think that $15B paper value attributed to Facebook will come back to haunt them, it will probably block any future exit. But that will be 1-3 years before they realize it. Ultimately, the Redmond crew outsmarted Facebook’s young management team for a relatively small sum of money.
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