On: Facebook Is Kinda OK but Largely Overrated : Matt's Homepage

He doesn't get it! Does. not. get. it.

It's an online rolodex! A REPLACEMENT for a real rolodex! Isn't that fucking outrageously brilliant?

It's clear how a rolodex web application with messaging and a full-featured API is worth nearly as much as GFS + PageRank + MapReduce + BigTable + 450,000 commodity servers + thousands of motivated engineers.

To be pedantic, no one is suggesting that FB is worth "nearly as much" as Google: even at an (absurd) valuation of $10 billion for Facebook, that is still less than 1/18th of Google's current market cap.

True, the question is whether Facebook will be worth that much in 5-10 years.

That would be Plaxo.

Not to mention, nobody has bought an actual Rolodex in 10 years. You can't build a business by replacing a product that has already been replaced.

maybe it's trying to replace your web mail for personal use...

plaxo began to be free only recently... besides its audience is traditionally more slanted for business professionals. It's trying to change, but it has a long road ahead

Weren't business professionals Rolodex's target audience as well?

i don't know. I'm not old enough to remember. I just equated a rolodex to an ancient address book... anyways my point is that plaxo just doesn't have the coolness factor that facebook for has personal use, though you're free to disagree

Oh, I don't know anything about Plaxo, other than what they do. Never had any use for it.

"It's an online rolodex! "

LinkedIn is.