Tech Blabber by a Tech Geek

Kara Swisher, of All Things Digital, writes about how there’s been a management shuffle at Facebook. Whether it was really a demotion or just a shuffling, who knows? Media types love to exaggerate something to eke out a story out of nothing.

The most entertaining part of the story is the video included in the blog post where Kara shows a trip that she made to Facebook. She proceeds to tour the buildings and make witty banter. Here victim de jour? Yahoo.

At one point, she’s interviewing Mike Murphy who’s running ad sales at Facebook and used to work at Yahoo. Well see it for yourself at 8:30 (8 mins, 30 seconds) into the video:

8:50
Kara: How is it different from working at Yahoo… ?

Mike: (answer)..

9:05
Kara: And also..like.. the walls aren’t falling all around you today like at Yahoo, for example–

Mike: *grinding teeth* We’re having fun! *angry glare*

Kara: Umm yeah! good! thx a lot. (rushed)

Mike: *most fake smile i’ve ever seen*

OUCH!!

I don’t blame Mike and this was definitely in poor taste. I’m sure Mr Murphy’s got plenty of stock in Yahoo plus former coworkers. It doesn’t help having some blogger twist that thorn in your side.

Proof that things are hot in Silicon Valley: On my drive down the 101 to work today, I saw 3 Lotus Elises (1 red, 1 black and 1 blue) and a Shelby was parked in my company lot (previously unseen).

Tech blogger Jason Calacanis recently wrote a blog post declaring Facebook Bankruptcy. Unfortunately, he’s turned comments off.

The crux of his argument seems to be this:

You spend so much time checking off what you’ll do that you never do anything.

The graphic he displays shows him being overwhelmed with application invites.

In support of him, I’ve received 2 or 3 applications requests that I’ve been avoiding like the plague (Zombies, Werewolves, and other mythical creatures). But Calacanis doens’t get it. How many of us have 150+ pending friend requests? The only way this is possible is for the average person is if you’re incredibly popular, told people to invite you and haven’t logged into Facebook for 2 years. I’m still at 80 friends myself despite all the networking I’ve been doing as of late.

More importantly, the issue at hand here is who you choose to accept in your social network and what you choose to hear from them. It’s almost like making shady friends and lamenting that relationship when the cops come knocking on your door. On Facebook, any friend who spams me with invite request either will be dialed down or removed. Personally, I’ve only added people I know as friends and have only lately added acquaintances. There’s a rare breed of people (tech bloggers) who will open up their network like a downtown street-walker.

I’m not sure if Calacanis is calling for attention by declaring something ridiculous but I was glad to read that Scoble responded with a post titled Calacanis Can’t Keep Up With Facebook. He illustrates my point by saying:

Media creation also means I need to be a professional networker. That’s why I go to TechCrunch parties — to find great people to interview. Last night I collected a stack of business cards. Those people get invited to join Facebook. Why? Facebook is the new business card AND the new media distribution network. Watch what’s happening with video inside Facebook. Watch what’s happening with applications.

edit:
Calacanis has a follow-up post showing how out-of-touch he really is titled Social Network Exhaustion. In it he says:

are we creating a social system to communicate with each other at a distance because the reality of creating and maintaining that social networking face-to-face is, well, scary?

Ok. So this is a question coming from an “Enterpreneur in Action” at Sequoia Capital, a VC firm that’s investing in companies like LinkedIn and YouTube. Couldn’t the same question be asked of those two companies?

Calacanis is just showing us how much outside the mainstream he is. Why do I use Facebook? There are several reasons. It facilitates interaction with my friends through online means. Yes, I could call my friends, have them from LA, Boston, Paris, and the South Bay and then show them old digital pictures from when we were in college. I suppose many of them wouldn’t show up. Instead, I can just publish them on Facebook.

How can a question like this be posed from someone whose most recent successful venture was based on blogs?? That, I don’t get.

Ballmer: We are ‘hell-bent’ on succeeding in ads

Hmm. Microsoft seems a little slow on the uptake.

“We are hell-bent and determined to allocate the talent, the resources, the money, the innovation to absolutely become a powerhouse in the ad business,” Ballmer said.’

Oo-kay. About 6 years late, aren’t we? Did the light bulb finally go off?

Ballmer said that the company is tackling disruptive technology changes head-on, namely the shift to advertising-supported Web services. Its commitment to online services and consumer devices are necessary because they provide avenues for the company’s software.

Commitment to online services and consumer devices… riiight. Microsoft will always be about two things: Windows and Office.

There’s one consumer device that Balmer’s not a fan of: The Iphone.

Balmer laughs at iPhone. iPhone, then, laughs at Windows CE.

I went straight from ValleyWag’s What’s Jason Goldberg Hiding? and Cheezhead’s Jobster’s Mysterious Video Deletion to Jobster’s Launch of All New Facebook App in 10 seconds flat.

Owen, Joel: Looks like Goldberg got you.

I have to say that I’m impressed.

It seems that the tech blogs have a been following a current theme the past couple days around Facebook being the next _____.

• Dave calls Facebook the Next Visual Basic.

• Similarly, Arrington calls Facebook the Next Microsoft.

• Lastly, Kottke calls Facebook the Next AOL .

With Facebook’s recent purchase of WebOS Parakey, it’s hard not to think this way.

I do cringe at the comparison of a web social network to a software conglomerat. Web vs Desktop. Ick.

But if I were to follow this analogy, I hope Facebook does NOT become the next Microsoft. If anything, my wish is that Facebook becomes the new LAMP.

Let me explain. Facebook has a huge following. You’ve read the stories and probably even know the numbers. They’re making an interesting play buying Parakey (I’m claiming ignorance behind the details of what they do). So they’ve got a huge userbase and a WebOS in their hands.

Kottke rightly compares Facebook to AOL in that they are a closed system. Dave rightly compares Facebook to Visual Basic in that they platform is a way to launch them into becoming more and more ubiquitous across the web. Putting all these thoughts together, I can’t help but feel that the danger of Facebook becoming the next Microsoft is that they are seeking dominance through a closed system.

I hope that does not happen. And if it does, it’s the beginning of the end (well.. perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself here).

But then there’s LAMP. I’m not an open-source zealot but when you take a step back you really see where LAMP and open source have taken us. We are sitting in this web renaissance (Dave’s term) because of open source and LAMP. Like many before me have said, we’ve lowered the cost of starting a company so much that your average engineer can start his own company with very little cash.

Facebook is creating incredible value behind the social graph that they maintain. It knows everything about the people I know and the types of relationships I maintain with them. Their platform is at a very nascent stage and needs deeper integration (I’ve been developing some Facebook Apps of my own). But if they leverage this WebOS and everything is closed, then it’s all for naught. In 10 years they will be holding dominance but innovation will be dead. And then we’ll be talking about the next “Facebook.”

I’ve been consuming so much media around Tech lately that I’ve decided to start my own tech blog. There are just too many thoughts and opinions sitting in my head that I figured I’d make a Go of it and jot them down here. Cheers!