Heri

_Note: this post was originally for MontrealTechWatch but I thought this blog was better for personal opinions_

I am seeing a lot of facebook-related posts accross the web, and it doesn’t seem to stop. In the screenshot above, I have 273 blog posts mentionning facebook in Google Reader (see above), which I use for tracking blogs in Montreal.

To put things in context: yes, I have a profile at facebook, and find myself logged in the service every two days, because of the occassional invite or the random be-friending. Second, yes, I admit they have done a very good job. The graphical design is one of the best you can get on the web; the flow between pages and the user interface are so well crafted that every other website seems broken compared to facebook.

This is all great, but if you ask me, I am not betting on it. It isn’t because of the data-mining advertising, where they now advertise lavalife, because I haven’t put anything in my relationship status. It isn’t either because they will soon make your profile avalaible to Google. Or because they force you to login to update your status, as opposed to other websites that have open interfaces. I understood that Mark Zuckerberg is determined to monetize facebook, and it’s his rights to do so, in any way he wants. And every other entrepreneur on earth would agree with him.

I registered to facebook one year ago, when they opened the platform to universities outside the US. It was very cool at the beginning and I spent a lot of time filling out pages and adding people. Seeing what your friends are up to was magic. But eventually my interest faded. And even though apps have revived the interest, I am pretty sure facebook’s design is fundamentally flawed. I follow what Joshua Porter is doing, and I think he nailed it, personal value must preced network value. In this case, Facebook has 0 value if you don’t added friends yet. zero. nada. You can’t make it do something useful for you.