- One commentator said "why would Microsoft think each Facebook use is worth $750 ?", But Microsoft didn't pay that. If we say that it paid in $450m and half of the 60 million accounts are fake or duplicate ie 30m people then Microsoft has paid $15/head, for the right to push it's advertising for years ahead plus it owns 3% of a $15bn corporation. Plus if it's lucky then the number of accounts doubles or triples then advertising costs fall to $10 or $5/head, an amount well within payback possibility.

- If Facebook is worth more then surely Google is worth less cos they share the same advertising pie ? Que no ?

Facebook Research
- It 's not great, It uses a "get them dependent model", It's vulnerable

After your essay on BBC Business Daily about Facebook the other day I decided to check it out. I already had 8 accounts with similar competitors actually it's more like 20. As always I am pretty anal so I checked all those as well.

Unlike Google Facebook is certainly NOT Amazing
Nothing particularly new or innovative Essentially FB is the same as Friendster , MySpace, Tribe, Multiply, Orkut etc except Friendster has a patent. They are webpage template tools. They make it easy for you to make a "cool" homepage/dashboard, but as ever you lose out a number of ways in the flexibility to make the page exactly how you want. This is a killer for me - Blogs make you have the last article at the top of the page. Yep, but imagine you come to review your travels, this means you have to read the story backwards.

All of the functions FB has I can do on my own website except for the see who is online now and chat part. Which I have other options for through Yahoo, Google, MSN or any other chat program. I can see how the kids are using FB mainly as a your own group chat program. This is better than the public chats which get ruined by boring people.

FB is not open source if your friends are not on FB then you can't see them; that's where the Google open source idea of linking in with other networks comes in handy. I predict an extra internet function will come along which will if they choose will show if your friends are online whatever network they on.

Limited : With FB I get a homepage/dashboard, a profile, a blog section, list my favourite music page. But with a website I can have all this as well plus anything I want to have book section, porn section etc. I have COMPLETE Control - if I want to link to a blog I can. Not only that, but I can change blog company, with them you are locked in to them; you are their bitch they are your pimp. Chinese citizens try putting the communist party sucks on you Facebook page ! (In fact I am sure I could even incorporate my facebook page into a page on my website perhaps incorporating a banner saying "don't buy from the advertisers". ) Though actually you have to be logged into FB to see peoples pages .. I thought internet was supposed to be about a freedom of information society ?

Even with a free website you could make your own facebook type dashboard page + make your own profile page

It could expand across the world .. maybe not - Surely things like FB have existed in Korea for 5-6 years already.

Vulnerability to death - 1. Just like many people stopped using Hotmail, cos of Spam or how the trolls killed messageboards on MSN there's always a possibility that a problem can kill one of these services e.g. privacy breaches, server overload etc and it seems they are vulnerable to stalking/grooming issues. If FB got a reputation as a paedophiles hangout then that my kill it.
Next Fad comes along - If something better comes along and people aren't too settled in then people will move especially if they are given incentives like hourly prize draws or sports exclusives.

- Creating Dependency - I guess that what it's all about. They give you a "cool" free service then when everyone knows your email address then they slowly jack up the advertising and even start charging. What are you going to do change your email and have the hassle of telling the whole world ?

- Once you seem to be a $15bn corporation you can follow the "Microsoft / Rockerfeller business model" of buying every company who tries to compete with you and there's always some of possibility that 1 in 10 companies will make you money anyway.

- In this business being Number 1 counts. If all your friends are chatting on F-book, then it's no use you hanging around on any of the competitors. So it's worth them spending money on promotion to get the key people addicted so that they drag all their friends with them. Maybe in US and UK schools they have succeeded in this. BUT this principle is dead.- Google has come up with a principle that you you be able to "see" your friends even when you are on different networks. If they hadn't somebody or some authority would have and it sticks with the "open source" principle of the internet. You couldn't have a cellphone company which doesn't let you call to other networks.

- If it were smart the BBC as a public service would offer each licence payer a free Networking/Facebook-type page. It could offer extra content to people who are logged in, so it could become the first place to log into so if it was "cool" people would just stick with the BBC-network and not bother to log into FB.

I have accounts with 20 different networking sites

usually the search is awful - Usually they come up with no-one in the same town - or in cities too many people and usually kids.

They have an irritating habit of revamping & asking you to re-register every 6 months.

spamming your friends- The first thing on signup is "Just type in your email password", and we'll tell your friends. And then they spam all the addresses in your email address book with an email purportedly from you saying "I found this real cool service called X and I am moving all my internet stuff there, cos it so cool and groovy, join me". This is for many reasons very irritating so I always skip that part.

the small print gives them copyright

1. "Scrapbook Communities"
   http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=11374580920343925507 - a dashboard also from Google, can't see anything without logging in, some groups mostly trashed or foreign
2. myspace.com/stewgreen - Widely used by bands, but I don't find it good for meeting people.
3. friendster.com/stewgreen - OK, but I don't find it good for meeting people.
4. stewgreen.sms.ac - shows many people, little info though, lots of ads, and seems to send txt spam to your phone so I used a false number in Spain to register, but I can't change my location ? maybe a java problem ?
5. 360.yahoo.com/stewgreen -- not great, 3 people in south thailand
6. stewgreen.multiply.com - actually a lot of Thai stuff on, very good designs, takes some liberties
7. http://my.msn.com/ - From Microsoft - one of the originals destroyed by spam and trolls - gives you a dashboard linked to hotmail - can't see strangers- same as Myyahoo really
8. stewgreen.spaces.live.com/ - Another From Microsoft blog, photos, friends can't see strangers- not linked to hotmail, but same MS login , people can't see unless logged in
9. tribe.net - other one - seems quite big
10. stewgreen.facebook.com - only logged in people can see anything, search means it's difficult to find people, I found nothing
11. TRAVEL Networks
    hospitalityclub.org - no info without login. Setup as a service not just a business. Discussion groups should be good cos tightly controlled, but when I checked through not interesting.
12. couchsurfing.com/stewgreen - can see profile. Discussion groups are good cos tightly controlled. Actually for forums it's better than HC.
13. stewgreen.virtualtourist.com - very commercially focused & loaded with ads. Deceptive & takes liberties, does have good basic info, but other times limited e.g. no hostels listed for Ko Pan Gnan
14. stewgreen.frappr.com - map tool maybe connected to couch surfing
15. BLOG Services
    stewgreen/bebo.com - blogpage + picture storage
16. stewgreen.blogspot.com/ - blogger.com blogspot.com from Google blogpage + picture storage
17. stewgreen.wordpress.com -blogging page test blog
18. PHOTOS Networks
    flickr.com/photos/stewgreen/ - picture storage tool from Yahoo
19. www.ringo.com/profile/stewgreen.html - photos, no blog, no groups, need to login my account has share switched off
20. OTHER Networks
    stumbleupon.com - website rater tool - have to download a program, therefore I won't do it
21. www.meetup.com/members/3250339/ - groups, photos and friends - mostly tools for group organisers some groups worth seeing yahoogroups is probably better
22. smartgroups closed down they recommend http://groups.yahoo.com , http://msnusers.com , http://groups.google.com
23. http://www.bbc.co.uk/messageboards -some OK, but mostly full of trolls
24. AOL has smilar services I guess
25. http://www.xanga.com/nazluna is empty

Naked Internet Tool Idea -It sits on your PC stripping the ads off the pages and filtering advertisers out of the search engine results.

That's all folks

Did you know Facebook just ruined everyones Christmas surprises is, their smart advertising guys thought friends might buy the same things, so when when X buys something off the site it mails all their friends to say X just bought designer underwear etc, maybe you want to buy the same .... Doh they have disabled that feature now)

- Myspace - the Myspace marketing twats thought it would be cool if people could buy tracks straight off the site so they signed a deal with Snocap and put a store on peoples myspace site without asking..

So if your band had a name similar to one already signed up to this track marketing company called Snocap they put a track shop on your myspace site selling their tracks

- trouble is it's a bugger to remove as the option box is so well hidden
-Also Snocap has a bad reputation for underdeclaring sales to artists and taking a huge royalty

I just fixed lemangpeterbrown -
- The fix is the user has to login to myspace and click and paste this into the address bar ! http://settings.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.changeprofile

I checked the beards and Dairy brothers page but they don't have this problem

Myspace - music player problem. Mosts bands pages I look at it says music loading and never actually plays . It seems Myspaces servers are overloaded. Jan 2008 seems this has been fixed

Facebook and BBC ethics : Digital Planet is always pushing FB so I asked if BBC got some advertising money from FB ? They didn't reply

- notes about Google's overvaluation and business model

- The Koreans have had services like Facebook for years so I don't think FB will take over the world

- blogs blog.telegraph has neat layout
same with www.panama-guide uses geek blog I like this
I could put my things in php pods, but
1 then can't see pages statically
2 maybe google doesn't search it

Stewgreen has 6 billion friends on line now - you have less cos you are a loser !

- my networks skeptics, brights, radio, listener, travel/culture