I’m not saying that Facebook isn’t a valuable property, and given the interest that rivals of the software giant had in Facebook, it would make sense to take an ‘at all costs’ approach to the recently announced round of investment, but giving the prince of social networks (yes, MySpace still reigns king of the jungle) a valuation of $15B seems a bit lofty. Given the rumours surrounding Google’s fear of Facebook and looking to become more open than Facebook, I would almost have to believe that their intentions weren’t that serious, but more likely to push Microsoft’s investment price up.

Microsoft isn’t completely stupid, and I don’t imagine this partnership will be, either (despite the price tag). With Facebook looking to become a web-based OS, it could simply be a case of Microsoft keeping it’s friends close and enemies closer. Another idea is ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend,’ and a unified or co-operative battle against Google is probably more attractive to both companies than trying to battle each other at the same time. Check out these posts for more perspective:

Paul Kedrosky

Techcrunch

Mashable

Having spent the better part of 2007 contracting for a company with several different offices, I’ve gotten a greater appreciation for smooth and seamless lines of communication. Just last week, I was on a call with a co-worker, which we both agreed was long overdue, and both mentioned that despite numerous E-mails, IM’s, and meetings it was still a challenge to effectively communicate between offices and departments. With the release of Office Communications Server 2007 and the accompanying line of products, Microsoft has taken a huge step towards helping address the increasing demands of corporate communications.

There will always be problems associated with this type of release, from conflicts between IT and telecom to questions of reliability, but one comment from Mike Gotta, an analyst at Burton Group, suggested this was “one of the most faultlessly executed multiyear strategies that [he] has seen from a vendor in some time.” For more information on the release, see this article.

Technology has helped us in many ways, but at the same time, Technology has been the source of many-a-headache, too. And because of those headaches that we’ve all endured over the years, it’s nice to see the professionals run into some of these same problems. Computerworld has come up with a list of Technology’s Most Mortifying Moments, and is giving you the chance to vote on the top (er, bottom?) moment. Everything from accidental net-nudity to 300-page phone bills to monkey dances, here is the list of nominees:

• Bill Gates’ Win98 demo with Blue Screen of Death
• Steve Ballmer’s “Monkey Boy” presentation
• Vista speech recognition demo that recognized no words
• Jeff Papows’ extreme resume embellishment
• AT&T’s 300-page iPhone bill
• Teenager cracks Australia’s $84 million porn filter in half an hour
• Sony’s CD rootkit fiasco
• Cat Schwartz’ inadvertent exposure on the Internet
• Internet worm released by the son of a renowned security expert
• Masses of self-promoting edits on Wikipedia

While top vote is going to the blue screen of death moment, I have to vote for the $84 million spent on the porn filter.

With so much buzz surrounding the site, especially since the opening up to include non-student users and the release of the API earlier this year, it seems a little deflating and almost like a lie to believe the latest comscore numbers for Facebook - traffic is down. While some may question this, I think it’s quite expected; the users that fueled the growth of the site were students, and when Facebook opened up to non-students, it would have been near semester’s end. With these students looking to enjoy the summer, parties, bbq’s, and end-of-the-year celebrations would have been created as events on Facebook, and their non-student friends would have been invited. The year in pictures might have been sent out to contacts, too.

With these students all returning to school, the summer ended and people settle down, and face it, the novelty (and annoyance) of having your life heavily rooted in the Facebook world is probably wearing off. Although this unexpected decrease could have been expected, it doesn’t seem to have hurt the site’s chances of getting purchased - rumours are swirling that Yahoo might have re-entered the picture.

SEOmoz is quickly becoming a regular site in my web-travels, and in the last week has been the source of several interesting articles. (Disclaimer: Although I have never really met or talked to anyone from SEOmoz, SuperbHosting.net, a company/site I contract for, is a sponsor of their site.) The site, as you might have guessed, focusses on Search Engine Optimization, and the family-run company is probably as close as you can get to understanding the science of SEO.

Yahoo is the Most Fullfilling Search Engine?

Five Reasons Why it’s Better to be Big & Popular Than Small & Niche

My Personal Opinion - 90% of the Rankings Equation Lies in These 4 Factors (which I posted about here)

The titles of the articles should give an idea about the articles themselves, so I will leave them to you rather than try and summarize them and sour you on the idea of checking them out yourself. I love the irony of writing this post, lauding the company, double checking the links, and finding out that the site is down for maintenance.