Naughty Facebook, could it be Google envy?

Facebook what?

I Didn't think I would be writing about Facebook again for a little while but then I came across Ed Dales blog post There Is Something Rotten In The State Of Facebook which I thought was interesting. Maybe Facebook are starting to get a bit desperate these days. Are they so desperate that they are thrashing around trying to figure out how to squeeze more money out of us. Could it be Google envy? It could just be fallout from floating with a high expectation and a not entirely unexpected drop in share price that's spurring them on like this.

They are also getting it in the neck about child pornography and a few other unsavoury sightings amongst their pages. Then there's the Facebook slap, are they trying to stay on the moral high ground or are they starting to bite the hand that feeds them? It ain't easy being in their position yu' know. Perhaps they ought to pilot their ideas a bit more and put it in beta before they thrust those new ideas on us. Google have done this successfully in the past. They used to put something into Google labs (RIP Google labs), try it out cautiously and only gave it a good shove once it was starting to look good. They have still dumped a few bloopers on us but have usually been able to step away from them gracefully.

In the light of this perhaps the Facebook "Like" should be joined by a Facebook "What?" ... oh well, it moderately amused me.

Personally I don't really have a beef with Facebook although if I do have one gripe it's that they are very hard to communicate with and are a bit er ... faceless!

Anyway, check out There Is Something Rotten In The State Of Facebook if you haven't already.

Both Facebook and Google are too big to be inconsistent now and need to be careful how much and how fast they move the goal posts. People have invested in them both in many ways so they have difficult responsibilities whether they like it or not.

Did you ever see the way that the sea lions get on the man made rafts around San Francisco? They tend to pile on to them until one big male gets on from one side, tips the raft and most of the rest fall off ... that could happen here I guess.

Thanks for reading, see you soon ...

Tom Langdon