Eirik Solheim referenced the term Facebooksofting at a conference in Stockholm I attended last week. It’s the Norwegian neologism that describes mucking about on Facebook – “softing” means relaxing in Norwegian, I think – or feeding the Facecrack habit as some would have it.
I quite like the term. I may start irritating people by using it.
Meanwhile everyone from the hardcore bloggerati to the Economist have been pontificating about the longer term significance of Facebook, which is either about to connect the world and become the new Google or is an inflating bubble of hype that will soon burst.
Some exchanges between bloggers have been getting quite personal – I particularly enjoyed the piquancy of this “Tweet” (a Twitter post) aimed at Stowe Boyd by Dave Winer (not least for the King Kong wallpaper)…
As for a “valuation” of $15 billion for Facebook, I think that’s a little rich. The slice that Microsoft has bought is worth that to Microsoft, but this is not a market valuation, in the fullest sense. This is not a stock market bubble, it’s Microsoft making a semi-defensive move as it struggles to come to terms with a future where its revenue may rest on advertising in networks (see the Economist article this week for a sober analysis).
On a personal level Facebook has lost some its context for me, as Danah Boyd put it recently. I’m drawing more on my more focussed, more private networks for personal communications and general networking fixes…
Facebook is bringing networks into the lives of many people for the first time. Think of Facebook as a chapter in the story of the rise of online networks as the defining media model of our age and you’ll have a clearer understanding of what’s going on than micro-focussed doom-mongers…
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