Facebook: Take the money and run!

I really enjoy Facebook.  But actually what I really enjoy is interacting with my friends.  I probably don’t really like the company Facebook that much.  Facebook has been very successful in tapping into social networking.  Frankly, I am surprised about how powerful social networking is.  But I think Facebook the company may think they are Social Networking.  And if they do, they are confused. Facebook is a tool to facilitate social networking.  What we like about the Facebook experience is the content and not the tool.  The content comes from us the users of Facebook but it is currently pretty much trapped inside of Facebook (there are some ways of breaking it loose).  Sometime in the next few years we will see the content break out of the closed world of Facebook. Check out this article in Wired.  Or this movement. New and better tools for interacting with content will emerge. Check out pip.io for instance or Tumblr.
This reminds me of the early days of email with companies like CCmail and Hotmail.  I read that Facebook is looking to go public in 2012 (assuming there is an IPO market).  I want to bet that never happens for a number of reasons including potential lawsuits.  I think that Facebook is very valuable in the mind of certain technology companies that have no road-map for the future but lots of cash.  If I was on the board of Facebook I would be trying to get them to sell. And remember the devil always pays cash.