Thoughts on Facebook, what's with all the hype?

By now you must have heard of Facebook, the internet's most hyped product since Google. I've been on it for a while and like it a lot, but to be honest I rarely use the service at the moment, and quite frankly can't or more importantly don't see why it's been hyped to this level, and cant for the life of me understand why or how Facebook plans to change the face of the internet as we know it and make our lives easier and better for everyone.
I get Google and I understand why and how Goog made our lives easier and better for everyone. But maybe that's because I read The Search by John Battelle. Or maybe it's because I use it everyday and old enough to remember what life and the internet was like before Goog came along
I love Wikipedia and it's self explanatory how that service has revolutionized our lives.
Craigslist; Nestoria; even Myspace, these to me are revolutionary internet products in various degrees. But Facebook? What's the practical application for the average guy on the street, whose definition of API is ... ???
Forgive me for being daft, but although I appreciate the logic, of the Facebook API from a marketing and business perspective, I don't believe that it will have the impact that most people think it will have for a few reasons.
Firstly, social networking is hot, but mainly amongst a younger or tech-geek demographic. Witness Myspace, Friendster and Hi5; the latter 2 are rarely talked about, but generate impressive traffic numbers that rival Facebook. And with Murdoch's deep pockets, no doubt he'll commission a Myspace API soon to rival Facebook. Hey if he can buy the Journal, he's pretty much God. And then what's stopping Hi5, Friendster, Twitter and all the other social sites from doing the same? And how will the developer community respond to the inevitable competition. More importantly how will consumers respond?
Not sure if any of these questions were answered at last night's Nestoria sponsored Facebook Developer meeting. Missed the free beer that Ed was rumored to be giving out ... DAAM !!!

Hotproperty relaunches

"into the Web 2.0 era" according to their press release. Funny, I can't remember what their old site looked like

Dreamliner 787

After flying close to 20 hours (round trip) in charter airlines and puddle jumpers, I can't wait for this

Oodle.co.uk now claiming more properties than Rightmove!

Great to be back in London (not ... where's the sun???).
As usual lots going on in our property world; been glued to the critically acclaimed Rat and Mouse at every opportunity (congratulations Ben!)
Anyway I got an email this afternoon from Duncan Dunlop at Oodle.co.uk, claiming that with almost 900,000 properties listed for sale they now have a larger sales database than Rightmove, the portal giant that pretty much everyone in UK property loves to hate.
Of course Oodle is not the first to claim a bigger database than Rightmove; Henry Pryor's Primemove currently boasting 1,122,066 properties advertised, and proudly claims to be "the largest online selection of available UK Properties".
Search giant Nestoria (yes they are giants) also claim over 800,000 listed properties although they do cover 2 countries and I'm not sure the breakdown for each individual country.
It's arguable that the main reason Oodle has grown so quickly is because they're primarily a classified site. Crucially Oodle doesn't crawl the internet for data, relying instead on strategic partnerships with content providers and publishing giants. More importantly, Oodle also seamlessly allows FSBO listings alongside those from estate agents, a strategy that generated a lot of heat when retailing giant Tesco's attempted it recently. Wonder why the same hasn't happened for Oodle?