First there was the telephone, then the Internet, then Facebook

i really dont think so. facebook is just a small step toward the right way of comunicating on the internet. We will see more in the short time.

I think Facebook is a new concept in web technology and, in fact, a new way for communication and sharing. But isn’t yet the really mainstream, maybe we (the users) must to encourage them to be more open.

I’m 22 and I wrote my graduation dissertation in Political Science on the subject of “Online Social Network Services and new communication behaviours” and I strongly agree with Mr Zuckerberg : SNS are not a fad, they are a massive socio-technological trend that will go far beyond the service as we know it today. It is about putting the people back into the technology, at the center of the communication, providing more tools, that are not incompatible with previous communication tools, but add an interesting layer.

Also, I met Marck Zuckerberg last week at the Dev Garage in Paris, and I must say he seems a very nice person to hang out with ! I’m glad you saw him value neutral too. (you know the joke : Google’s moto is “don’t be evil”, Facebook moto is “don’t get caught”).

Dutch speaking people tended to prefer to use Dutch breed Hyves until too many gadgets were supplemented. Nowadays they prefer Flemish breed Netlog which is really simple and a real cool transparance. Martin, if I were you I opted for Netlog!

Hello Martin.

I have friends and have met people (at Seedcamp 07 for one) who were staunchly anti-FB for one reason or another. Gradually those friends of mine have succumbed, in part, I am sure, because ‘everyone else’ is on and when you get used to the ease and richness of communication on FB, you tend to give your non-FB friends short shrift. Not only have I stopped using gmail as my main source of group discussion, in favor of FB, but I also have become completely uninterested in my Linked-In contacts. many of whom are not friends on FB.

In this regard, I notice that those FB friends of mine who use it most openly, that is, speaking and sharing freely between both professional and personal contacts, get the most out of it. It took me a while to become comfortable doing so, because I am normally very private at work, but I find that it is easier to get to know people who are professional acquaintances — in a low key way — when you can share lighter fare, like a discussion of current events, instead of only contacting them in a very specific business situation. And then of course, there simply is not enough time in the day to make these stark delineations anymore between work and play.

I think FB has recently (very smartly) defined to the world exactly what makes it different than Myspace and other more virtual worlds. It is this distinction that is what will keep it growing in the astounding way that it has. Arrington made fun of it I know but when people need to figure out which one to join - it helps to know what culture makes it different. I agree with it. I have 135 friends on FB and pretty most all of them I either see on a regular basis or have met in person. And it is quite true that FB helps me keep in touch with people in my life in a less cursory way.

I don’t think FB is a fad. I think its inevitable like a steamroller. I am sure there are more avant garde and perhaps more technologically exciting social communities out there, but I don’t know one that does a better job than FB. It has become the primary organizer of my social and online life. When Zuckerberg first announced a test version of the new FB, I checked it out and immediately hated it. Hated it. I thought the only business decision behind it was to increase the number of pages for ad views to make more revenue. But now that I have been using it - I can see its genius. The wall in particular - the wall-to-wall conversations between friends and friends of second degree has made my daily conversations that much more interesting. My favorite feature on FB has to be “posted items”. I must post about 15 of them a day. And its a lot of fun to have discussions in that format. And it makes your interaction with friends in multple degrees more real, as compared with the sort of virtual connection you might have playing scrabble with a friend of a friend. It will be interesting and fun to see the different permutations of FB in Europe and places like Asia, where information sharing, personal disclosure and friend/contact sharing is under lock and key. I am Korean-American and my sister (who lives in Singapore) is horrified at the amount of information I share with people on FB.

Hi Martin, I read this great article before, but today I was taking a look at the Web 2.0 Summit speakers page and I found this:
“Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of Facebook, which he founded in 2004. Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, families and coworkers.”

I few weeks ago, you could find everywhere that Facebook is a Social network, or a social service network, but now it’s defined as a Social Utility… I think I’m starting to agree with Mark…

Matias Paterlini