Facebook = AOL?

I stopped Twitter from automatically updating to Facebook. Actually, it was Facebook pulling the Twitter feed entries.I did this so I could put out more Twitter messages without spamming people on Facebook. That worked, but I have found that I don't put much of anything up on Facebook. I don't like the fact that Facebook is a sandbox and I cannot figure out a good way to blog about the content that I put up there. Facebook has become the new AOL.

This worries me regarding the content on Facebook Facebook is the largest personal content provider. They have more pictures than any other service. They are number 3 in video content with a bullet.

People use the status reports to do the same thing that Twitter was invented to do. You can even send text messages to your status. Soon they will have all the location stuff that lets people say where they are in their media and status updates. Someone is in to this apparently because of places like four square. Not sure how much I want that kind of leash. Geo-tagging is one of the latest cool things on the net.

You just know the old AOL execs are kicking themselves. AOL never had 300,000,000 users world wide. Facebook doesn't charge you $20 a month either. It seems like the real issue here is to figure out how to do a job for millions of people on the Internet for no money from those people. They will beat a URL to your door.

What is going to happen to Facebook. It is almost out of the fad stage. Soon it will be at a different level. Facebook may achieve a utility status. That is a status like "The Electric Company" or "The Gas Company" that people rattle off like it is something real. Evey one has an Electric Company. They all have a name. Mine is TXU. This would be a good place to be for Facebook because they would be a go to solution for a lot of people.

The bad side might look something like AOL's demise. AOL was bought up by someone who thought they were getting something cool. The trouble was AOL was never cool, it was necessary for a lot of people. AOL tried to do too many things for too many people. The best thing that ever happened to AOL was the loss of customers right after they merged.

Facebook is having database issues. They keep changing their pages to cut the number and intensity of database queries. Soon, they are going to have to eliminate or obfuscate commenting on other people's status. That is a huge hit on databases. The more people who sign up and make links and pictures and other content make the hits to the databases just that much more complex. Something is going to break.This is why the front page keeps changing on Facebook and Facebook Mobile.

The power of AOL lied in the idea that everyone was on AOL there for, you could get hold of every one on AOL. This is 100% true for Facebook. I don't know any one with a Twitter account who does not also have a Facebook account. As long as Facebook is the focal point of all these peripheral services they will all work in harmony. The seeds of change will be planted when another service comes along that every one starts going to in order to find every one else. Hey, that is what happened to AOL, Prodigy, and Usenet. News Papers and MySpace are headed there.