Facebook is a ad agency as the most revenue comes from selling ads. Btw Facebook is still the second biggest ad agency in the world. Right after Google. Facebook needs to grow in order to please investors with the coming and awaiting IPO this year. Facebook, just like Google and other tech businesses, is a data-driven company. Hell, they must have huge data sets. Pretty much a hot stuff in the information society. Facebook will have to host their data centers in Arctic soon. But back to the data business. Look at the metrics that Facebook regularly reports in public. The user engagement and time spent on site. More than half of Facebook users visit the site every day (http://newsroom.fb.com/content/default.aspx?NewsAreaId=22). In the time spent on site parameter, Facebook beats significantly other big competitors (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/facebook-is-destroying-google-in-time-spent-online-chart/4183). These two figures represent key values that are supposed to grow in order to justify current 100+ Billion valuation of the company. The new Timeline is a great example of how to keep visitors on site for a longer time. The timeline almost never ends as you scroll down. Much more sticky then a recent boring profile, right? The same is true for the News Feed which is the main page of Facebook. Interactive designers, engineers, social behavior scientists etc. optimize this page. They test, measure, learn, improve and test again. The features that push engagement and time spent high stay on the site, the rest gets killed. And this cycle goes on and on. So you might complain that your Facebook is cluttered with stupid pictures and cat videos, missing important updates. It might be the case. The pictures and videos, all the multimedia files in general, catch more Likes, Shares and comments bringing back other curious friends eager to see the cute overload. It's cheap but it pumps the numbers up and right on the graph.

Timothy, this is a great observation: -- Its not surprising that Artists still choose things based on how they look instead of how they actually impact there business. -- I totally agree. Results is what really matters.

Musicians can also add the special Concerts tab with the help of our Facebook app at http://www.facebook.com/concertin?sk=app_4949752878

The app has been public for months. This is really not news. You should check facts first.

I do not agree. Facebook is a destination site as people spend there most of their online time. If you want to forward your Facebook fans to your website, then the conversion rate (of any action) will probably go down. Regarding personalization, you can achieve a full customization with a Facebook app that can be added to your FB Page. Moreover you can get visitor stats, perhaps not full featured as Google Analytics at the moment. Still you get interesting demographic data. The last thing: users' behavior outside Facebook is slightly different than the one you expect inside Facebook. They "socialize" more inside Facebook.

A long piece but still worth of reading :) I really share your view and would like to add a small note. What I see as a typical T-Rex behavior is a local investing, e.g. most investors invest only in the Bay area. I like your GOAP idea where you and likes explore opportunities outside the U.S. Of course it's going to be riskier business to invest "somewhere" in Europe or Asia. But if you, or better say any investors, go the extra mile then you can invest at really low cost compared to the U.S. values. So it might be really win-win situation for both investors and foreign startups.