Today I’ve been reading Rex Hammock’s Weblog (thanks Voidstar for the link) who writes about how Facebook it’s not really the Holy Grail for either social networking or being the ultimate tool for collaborative working and tracking. He calls it’ “geek play”, and I agree. He says:
Facebook is not even close to being what will ultimately be that thing which alters fundamentally the way in which we relate and communicate. It may show us the way, but there are some important factors related to personal identity and social interaction that Facebook — or any platform that requires us to create community that is locked inside a wall — will not be able to overcome if it is to become the next be-all, end-all.
He also mentioned Ning which was previewed last year at Content 2.0 here in London when Marc Canter got up on stage and pointed out that MySpace users couldn’t own theor own profiles or move them around networks. Well guess what? here we are again with the same old issue all over again, this time with Facebook.
Meanwhile over here, “A VC in NYC” agrees with Jason Calacanis that “Facebook Bakruptcy” is where you have total overload of friend requests and incoming stuff to deal with. Plus FB is becoming so successful, startups are wondering if they should just build an application for Facebook rather than build out a whole web service.
My view is that building a site is a marathon not a sprint. If you can’t control your content then you have no business long term. Sure, market your site on Facebook – but don’t for pete’s sake put your whole idea into it.