Facebook, with a billion users (rounding off), was until recently widely thought to be on a course to dominate communication on the internet. Now the suspicion is dawning that it is, like MySpace before it, a fad. Fie on you fickle friends of Facebook!
Whatever it proves to be, FB has earned a “like” for nearly single-handedly ensuring against another tech 'bubble' by right-pricing their initial public offering (IPO) of stock, which promptly sank. FB's purchase of a photo-sharing start-up for a cool $1 billion in the weeks before trying to raise cash, probably raised some eyebrows and suspicions about the company's direction and understanding of value.
FB could throw around many more billions so long as it remained the main site for hundreds of millions. However, its cool is cooling. The most chastening or dispiriting barometer of lost coolness is a Toyota ad mocking a young woman worried about her parents not having many “friends” on FB, while they are shown doing many things with real people (involving driving around, inevitably). Hilarious. It is the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?
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