To play devil's advocate here do you have any evidence that Google's model generates higher return, click thru or revenue? To me it seems like Facebook is the

To play devil's advocate here do you have any evidence that Google's model generates higher return, click thru or revenue? To me it seems like Facebook is the best long term business model. Slowly, as you and your friends update every bit of your life, where you are, what you are doing, who you are with, etc. they can have a massive amount of data to target you with. Google basically made Gmail just so they could mine more data from your email to better target adverts. Facebook may have found the golden needle in the haystack if they evolve the business correctly which it looks like they will. Look where they are taking things with places, etc. Google can target you and the people who email you but there isn't a permanent link between you and the recipient(s) whereas with FB it is a chunky sold gold chain linking you together in every way they can think of from things you "like", wall posts, comments replying to you, comments you make, invites you get, invites you accept, places you go, who you go with, when you go, how much you spend, monitor you behaviour via status updates. They will know you go out every friday night with the same three friends to one of two bars or clubs, you then go and add photos to FB when you are there and label everyone in the pictures, the location either specifically or via geotag, etc. Google may have a lot of your data but FB is the holy grail and every business needs to think about how they can get in on the action. Google tried with the piece of crap Buzz was and the crappy Orkut that they bought but let it die when FB exploded. Soon FB will be as well known as Coca Cola and used by everyone. FB is the first service my mum, dad, grandma, aunt, uncle, etc. use. It isn't just a "under 30s" thing, literally everyone can and seem to be using it. Facebook is going to only get bigger and they have such a high userbase now it is hard to see how anyone else will replace them. They saw what happened to MySpace, they are smart and have learnt from others mistakes. Just my 2c though :)