2009 is the year of Facebook

It continues to amaze me - since December, a steady flow of my friends from grade school, high school, and college have been joining Facebook. But before December it was very quiet. I wonder what happened suddenly to make this happen?

In any case, the fact is that, at least with my relatively small, skewed sample population, Facebook is exploding. And this jibes with compete.com's most recent survey showing that Facebook has passed Myspace as the top social networking site.

[The following added 2/17/09 11:05 AM]

An article in Fortune magazine notes that 18- to 24-year-olds now make up less than a quarter of users - that the newer members are more "mature". But the article doesn't get to the underlying reason why this is so. Younger people are already more in touch with their friends. They see them at school, they see them at events, they see them in the bars. So how much do they need Facebook? Compare this to the more "matured". After college, people start to move to other geographic locations, pair off, get married, and have kids. As that happens, contact between friends inevitably becomes less frequent - and, in the past, often nonexistent. And even if people are happy with their choices, there's a real sense of loss. So now along comes Facebook. As people join - as the network effect takes effect - these "communities" of grade school, high school, and college friends come back together. And the sense of loss lessens. That's powerful.

NBC Direct - I don't think so!

I went to nbc.com to watch a tv episode. One of the options is to download a software application, NBC Direct, that you then use to download episodes and watch them when you want.

Well, I downloaded the software and then started reading the license agreement. Here are some key clauses:

First, their definition of "content":

[The service] manages and delivers video, music, audiovisual and other content ("Content") to you from NBCU.

And now, what you agree to:

BY ACCEPTING THIS LICENSE, YOU AGREE TO ALLOW FILES CONTAINING CONTENT TO BE DELETED FROM YOUR HARD DRIVE BY THE SERVICE AT THE EXPIRATION OF THE APPLICABLE LICENSE PERIOD and term.

YOU SPECIFICALLY AGREE THAT THE SOFTWARE MAY DELETE FILES AND CONTENT FROM YOUR HARD DRIVE(S) AND OTHER COMPUTER MEDIA.

you hereby grant permission for the Software to utilize the processor and bandwidth of your computer for the limited purposes of (i) facilitating the transfer of digital files and communication between the users of the Software and the Services and (ii) facilitating the transfer of digital files to servers for purposes of posting content on websites or blogs and (iii) pasting links to content in instant messages and RSS feeds.

[The software] will block you from obtaining and playing Secure Content for which you do not have a valid license.

NBCU or the owners of DRM Technology may also download revocation lists onto your computer.

You consent to periodic updates of the Service client application stored on your computer without further notice to you.

Now NBC might use these contractual rights benignly, but the contract is written in such a way that they could act malignantly and argue that they are acting within the bounds of the agreement. For example, the definition of content SHOULD mean only the video, music, etc. that you get from them; but the sentence is written in such a way as to allow them to argue that any of video, music, etc. on your computer is "content". Taking this stance, the other clauses allow them to delete or deny access to any content on your computer. They'd cause quite an uproar by doing this, and they probably won't; but I don't need their software, so am I going to complete the installation process? I think not.