I came across this BusinessWeek article on the “missteps” of facebook and how they got a bit too ahead of themselves. I’ve been waiting for a long time for such article to be published. The article was so-so but I enjoyed the reader’s comments. Zuck’s arrogance and aloofness doesn’t bother me (what can you expect from a 23 year old paper billionaire) but the cockiness and intent of revolutionizing the advertising world with their Beacon project was a bit far off. AND, I quote from the article “The Harvard dropout has created one of the fastest-growing and arguably most innovative Internet companies since Google.”

WHAT???

How can an over-hyped, viral marketed, annoying social Rolodex be innovative and revolutionary? That statement puts Facebook behind Wordpress and the wonderful world of blogging, RSS, Wikipedia, Digg, Flickr and Youtube - Sites that actually bring value to the web!

The developer’s platform was a neat idea, I’ll give them that. But how can the small guy compete against VC backed companies like RockYou ($10M investment) and Slide? Do these 3rd party companies even have a business model?

Back to facebook - I guess people enjoy getting “poked”, graffiti on their walls and re-connecting with long lost friends they weren’t even that close with. Heck, even I have an account I visit once a month. I wish for the hype to deflate and have them focus on building a real business. Best of luck to them.