May 21st, 2007
YouTube, MySpace, Facebook: Is the honeymoon over?
Is Facebook really the next Google, royalty in waiting?
Chad Hurley declared himself and his partner Steve Chen Internet “Kings” upon the YouTube buyout by Google for a royal ransom of $1.65 billion in GOOG.
The world has since concurred, literally (at least on the Chad front).
From the World Economic Forum in January to a supposedly
Now, Facebook is being given the royal treatment, too.
MySpace? Tom Anderson may be everyone’s friend, but the MySpace he helped create remains the “wild, wild, west,” he wanted it to be!
AND, that is NOT a good thing, for many who wield considerable influence over the future fortunes of the social networking darlings, or in Facebook’s case, the “social utility” darling, as 23 year old Mark Zuckerberg insists, according to the Wall Street Journal:
He has bristled at Facebook’s “social networking” tag, instead calling the site a “social utility.”
Whatever they may be called, the free to the consumer services are coming under increasing fire, from around the corner to around the world.
From the Ontario government to the U.S. Defense Department, the sites are being banned and blocked for conduct unbecoming.
While many may dismiss such actions as authoritarian meddling, “progressive” MoveOn.org is getting in on the social networks better shape up action as well, as I reported straight from the Personal Democracy Forum “Sponsored by Google” in New York City Friday: MySpace Friends: Rupert Murdoch is NOT the boss!
While conventional Web 2.0 wisdom is that the Web is “becoming more social,” the very drivers of such touted sociability are under scrutiny for anti-social behavior.
Is the Web 2.0 Social Networking honeymoon over?
ALSO: Facebook: Who needs Yahoo, Craigslist, newspapers?
