Everywhere I turn people seem to be talking about Facebook (I know I’m very guilty of it). From a University perspective it’s creating a lot of debate – How much should we encourage it’s use? Should we be plugging into it? Can we reprimand our students if we find information we don’t like on it? And then there is the view ‘well it’s just a fad so why bother worrying about it’.
Just as we’re getting comfortable with the concept of Facebook and making decisions about how much we wish to engage with it… they change something else and we have a whole host of ‘new’ things to talk about.
Today the headline is Social site Facebook buys Parakey! Basically Facebook have bought an internet startup called Parakey which is causing TechCrunch to ask Could Facebook Become The Next Microsoft?.
So could it? Is that where it’s heading?
I’m not convinced it’ll be the next microsoft but in terms of huge growth – yes I can see it happening. The great thing about Facebook and it’s developer platform is that ‘we’ the users create most of it’s usefulness. We’re adding, linking, building applications and we’re making it more useful for ourselves. We have few constraints. If it doesn’t do something you want it to do then you can build your own application and plug it in.
It looks like Facebook’s aim and direction are clear. So how will we respond? Well I for one still maintain they are the site to watch… and watch I will.