Brier Dudley asked a rather interesting question in his post about the recent hoopla over Microsoft’s possible investment in Facebook … “Is Facebook the next billion-dollar fairy tale, or are those over for awhile”

Well besides the fact that it has been leaked that Google is gearing up their anti-Facebook ninja troops and that neither Microsoft or Yahoo can ignore the potential social networking marketplace it would make all the sense for either of them to start dancing with Facebook. Even though Yahoo brought its own weak effort to the social network BBQ party I am sure they would drop it like a hot potato if they thought they had a chance for walking up the isle with FB.

Given all that it doesn’t surprise me in the least; if the rumors are true, that Microsoft is trying to buy a piece of the current social network flavor of the month. It is also the reason that they are only putting $500mil on the table because they have been around long enough to know how quickly the tides can shift.

Those tides of Charlie Brown users are well known for moving at the slightest whim of the pack leaders. From Friendster to LinkedIn and MySpace to the newest darling Facebook the userbase has shifted in the matter of weeks. All it takes is the likes of the Scoble’s, Rubel’s and the other top 20 or so of the tech blogosphere mover and shakers to pass the magical wand of cool.

The social networks have a love/hate relationship with this bunch and need them to give any social app the instant acceptance and userbase boost needed to survive angel investor rounds. As much as they need this section of bloggers they don’t really want them. They want the people that the leaders bring and even more so the users in the internet mainstream that this second level brings.

The problem with social networks is that is all just based on software and the early adopters that you can convince that this service is cooler than the one they are using. The simple fact is that what one bunch of developers can bring to market another bunch can better and bring to the same market. that is the nature of software … it isn’t static.

So will Facebook stay the darling of the social network daisy chain circuit?

My guess is that at some point some-one will come along with a better package; and who has learned all the lessons, and will get the attention of the early adopters. At that point we’ll start this silly dance all over again because we all want to be part of the cool and new so we will switch without even thinking following the early adopters who will probably by that time be on to the next cool thing.

Listening to: Faithless - Sunday 8pm (Special Edition) - Take The Long Way Home

Conversation Tags: social networks, Facebook, Orkut, Friendster, LinkedIn, MySpace, early adopters