Networking

So, apparently Facebook is now valued at about $50bn. The company that makes nothing and wastes a lot of time is worth much more that the Gap and nearly two-thirds as much as McDonald's. There are justifications flying around about why this should be the case but I don't buy any of it.

First of all, when have you every spent money on Facebook or its advertisers? Second, the people behind this heady figure include Goldman Sachs, those nice guys who helped us with our current financial crisis and were then handsomely rewarded for their efforts.

I'm no finance guy but this smells like crap to me. Luckily, you don't need to listen to me because others more knowledgeable explain why.

Update 14 Jan 2011: Perhaps this is the real reason for the investment is that Facebook wants to issue your internet Driver's License. Is there some collusion between government and business going on behind the scenes?

Shiv Singh's (Avenue A/Razorfish's Global Director) take on Social media.

Facebook is great. You can find out what your friends are up to, hook-up with long-lost university chums; I've even hired someone through it. However, as I've told it about the places I've visited, or what I like watching and reading, there have been times when I wondered what will happen to all that information.

An old forum posting, apparently from August 2005, doesn't do anything to put my mind at ease. This video summarises the conspiracy theory in a nicely sinister way.

So, is it time to start wearing tin-foil hats and closing our social networking accounts? Well, it's probably too late for that. Nevertheless, it is worth thinking about all the information we're giving away.

A primer for lsof ("list open files"):

lsof: The Most Powerful Unix/Linux Command That Nobody Ever Uses

Also includes primers for:

• Tcpdump