Well, it’s February now – and though people might have expected a post saying something on the “love month” or probably something related to – even minutely – the Valentine’s Day – they should know my love for Facebook (Social Networks in general ;) ) is way more than any person beyond my family ! :P

Na – this isn’t a trap for the Facebook people to be enchanted into giving me a job amongst them (though that would be great ! :D ) but more to appreciate the fact – no the uncanny reality – of how intellectually great that person is who thought of cashing in on the whole scenario of “friends talking” ! And since it’s Mark Zuckerberg, Founder/CEO – Facebook (ya ya I know introductions or citations aren’t needed – but still designations with names sound fancy – even now ! :P ) – this surely gives rest to the reasons behind my apparent “love” for dear Facebook ! ;)

And this post is well timed (well, I made it to be so ! :D ) with the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Facebook – the company which in it’s SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) filing is “seeking” to raise $5 billion – though it might as well be valued at over $100 billion as per the industry talks ! Whoa ! All this based on just the 845 million monthly active user-base which generates around 2.7 billion likes & comments per day, uploads 250 million photos daily & which has formed around 100 billion friendships ! OHKAY ! That isn’t less ! :O

But imagine the thinking behind creating the whole platform which holds all this ! The start itself was very mature – that of Zuckerberg’s approach towards building Facebook – to make the world more social and connected. And it has – for the better part of it’s existence – been successful in achieving it’s this mission. According to reports (part of the study by Facebook’s own data team & University of Milan) the traditional “six degrees of separation” (that researchers have historically observed between all people in the world) has been dropping since 2008 on the site, from 5.28 then to 4.74 now. So there is a public directory finally in place – to look at it that way – which will obviously have loads of benefits to many in the domain – any domain for that matter.

Though this sure is overwhelming, more appreciable is the entrepreneurial approach to it – or to call it the business money-making approach to it. So while you go on using the platform for interacting with your friends & family, sharing your achievements or thoughts for the day, there are people who are benefiting from these actions of yours. Given the IPO filing, each user has been evaluated at $5.92 worth. Obviously Facebook saw the major picture of it all + I’m worth a large Dominos Cheese Burst Pizza ! Yay ! :D :P

It sure is the era of change, while there was a time when people used to keep interactions with far away friends and family limited to emails or hand-written letters or rather phone calls, the rise of the social networks has surely given them a richer platform to engage on. There’s LinkedIn to keep your professional network under activity, Twitter to voice yourself to the public in general, Facebook to engage with friends & family, and now Google+ too, though I think commercial establishments would benefit from it better – given the leverage they would get in the search results by being on Google+ – again “I think” – don’t quote my words anywhere – NO; never ! :/

That said, everything free sure comes with some benefit to the platform organiser – and this is what Facebook (or any other social network for that matter) cashes on – your information & the data you generate while on these sites – due to your activity. So, your each click is of value to the company, your each comment has value – as that is what it is basing it’s algorithm on – what you talk about, what you do ! So, as Facebook suggests in it’s IPO filing, if you’re talking about flowers for the Valentine’s Day (blah ! It did occur in my post ! :P ) – there will be ads about florists in your area (again an information that you’ve already provided in your profile) which you’re pretty likely to click (especially if you’re an online buyer, obviously having access to the internet). Benefit to the florist – benefit to Facebook, as it generates its income from its “pay-per-click” ad pricing system. Man ! A superior commercialisation method for a simple (though not now) PHP/MySQL website ! But that is what entrepreneurship is all about – earning from your own passions – geeky passions here. And no, I won’t blame Facebook for being commercial, for at its best it has provided us with a massive platform to be along with our friends & people of concern – I myself have found many old friends over Facebook & strengthened many more friendships over time – just because of Facebook, because frankly speaking, I surely would have forgotten wishing my friends on their birthdays had it not been for the calendar ! O.o

So, all in all, while it was and will remain a challenge to figure out what to do with the huge amount of information generated in this “Information Age” – we do have a potential winner – Facebook, or probably Mark Zuckerberg. A Harvard-dropout. Wish India takes in the trend of dropouts more liberally – see Apple (Steve Jobs), Microsoft (Bill Gates), Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg), Virgin Group (Richard Branson), Dell (Michael Dell), and I could go on an on about it – ya the list is that long ! :|

Well, riding on the belief that “an idea can change your life” saying almost always wins hands down – rather billions down – hope we see more of the Facebook story developing over time – it’s a pretty good blockbuster type script story ! :D
Disclaimer: I’m not much of a Sooraj Barjatya/Karan Johar movie fan – so my interests need not be much spicy – the masala kind if you say ! ;)