WSJ says Microsoft wants a piece of Facebook. Charlene Li crunches some interesting numbers and works out that Facebook's 42 million users (which may be an overestimate) are worth somewhere between $142 to $238 each.
Gav talks about Facebook as a platform of influence and Ross talks about value shifting to social networks.
My own experience of Facebook is that it is morphing into a social collaboration portal - with people, links, events, updates. E.g. last week I discovered from his Facebook status that Stephen was in town and had the pleasure of meeting him.
But as a Googlesque pot of advertising gold, Facebook is not in the same league. A search engine deals expressly with fulfilling need - far more so than TV or newspapers who bribe viewers with content into watching ads. Google have effectively created a market. There may be some money in user-profiling & personalisation but part of the pleasure of FB is its lack of in-you-face advertising.
On Google, you get traffic when you give people what they want. And Google tells you what they want because they have told Google. On Facebook, you also have to give people what they want but it won't be brought to you on an Ad-Words plate. STA Travel have done some cool stuff - they not only have an FB Group that allows them to offer customer service to Facebook members, they've also built a handful of applications such as an "I'm outta here x days on my travels" countdown clock. Public customer service is advertising is public customer service.
All this talk of platforms may be right. Just as Java & Yahoo! & AOL were all supposed to take Windows out of the equation, so the descendants of Google or Facebook may do the same. However Windows does one simple thing. It hides the complexity of the technology in your PC. The one thing that hid the complexity of the technology on the web - the browser - has already been commoditised. In truth, Google/Facebook/etc can only hope to be like TV channels, not the TV screen itself.
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Matt, I think that last line is right. In many ways, Microsoft already own the device and now they are creeping up the value chain (something they have some expertise in). We already have to create applications to play nicely in Windows (because that's what people have), now to play where the people play, brands have to learn the dynamics, etiquette and norms of social media -- and recalibrate their positioning to do so. The point at which technology becomes transparent is the mainstream tipping point. Is Facebook there yet? Not with only 42 million users ... but there is plenty of insight on that front that Microsoft can provide Facebook (and now that I think abou it, why are we all talking about what Facebook will bring Microsoft and not the other way around?).
There is plenty that MS can provide FB - apart from advertising revenue. However I think that the web in its current form allows a lot of technology transparency without platform dominance. Things are linkable & mashable. Many platforms have been proclaimed over the last 10 years but no one has come out on top.
Free-wheeling, a shift to mobile devices might be a spur to greater conformity. You want a simpler, more seamless kind of interaction with a mobile device. A Mobile Facebook (a Macebook?) might be a dominant platform...
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