So Facebook’s IPO didn’t work out the way everyone dreamed – unless you dreamed about a downward trending line. Do I think it was priced right, or that people are over reacting? Doesn’t matter – don’t take stock tips from me.

What I can tell you is that Facebook still is the largest social network on the planet with over 900 million monthly users, almost 400 million of whom logged on at least six out of the last seven days (as of March 2012.) People use Facebook in 70 languages, and over 300 million photos are uploaded daily. 3.2 billion “likes” happened in the first quarter of this year. You may read that they’re not as popular with the younger kids or that they don’t have room to grow. I call shenanigans. There’s still a lot of life in this puppy.
Is Facebook perfect? No. There are lots of things I’d change if I were Zuck. But what’s important for my clients and friends to understand is that Facebook has become infractructure on the Internet. People use their Facebook IDs to comment on other websites, login to other sites, and share from other sites back to Facebook. If Google is a ‘database of intentions,’ tracking people’s searches to derive what they’re going to do or hoping to do, Facebook is becoming a ‘database of actions.‘

We went to this specific restaurant and we liked it. We took this photo here, at this location, showing that we didn’t just search for this place – we found it, enjoyed it, and shared it.
If you’re a small business, you might enjoy my recent column about a series of webinars from Facebook’s Small Business Team on how to use their ads more effectively. They’re obviously trying to make the platform easier to understand for the lower-spending but more plentiful small businesses of the world – so take advantage of it and learn more about how to make your home page more effective, target your audience, and more. Contact me if I can be helpful in this regard.