Russell Beattie

Wow, I don't know about you, but the hype cycle around the Facebook Platform went full circle so fast, my neck hurts. Have you ever seen something with such extremes of buzz? Forget "Internet Time", they're going to have to coin a new phrase called "Facebook Time" for this sort of thing.

First it was all about the how great the new platform was: "Facebook's platform is going to be as big as Search - forget Search Engine Optmization, it's all going to be about News Feed Optimization. All you startups better start prepping, because the main interface for the entire Web is going to be Facebook! Forget individual websites, it's all Facebook Apps now!"

Then in the past day or so it's gone completely sideways and now and there's nothing but gloom and despair. There's only really a handful of companies benefiting from the new platform, all those apps just add clutter and too many choices, all that activity is onerous to manage, Facebook itself is afraid of how many apps there are, and hey how is anyone going to actually make money from this stuff anyways?!?!

It's not the speed, per se... they launched the platform back at the end of May, right? So it's been a few months. It's just the peaks and valleys of it which gets me. It's all or nothing - the best thing ever, or a complete failure.

Insane.

-Russ