It looks as if Laura Scott, pingVision, had some free time on her hands. There are reasons free servcies on the Internet are free. Laura wants you to start asking yourself, "why?".

Is the future really free?

It seems we've entered an age where there's a land-grab happening for personal data and attention time. Look at all the web start-ups backed by venture capital. They aren't investing out of philanthropy. There's value there. YouTube is "free" but Google paid over a billion dollars for it. Why?

Here's a hint: It's not about the Tube. [Read more at Laura Scott's Blog]

Personally, I'll need to read her post a few times and soak in on the information from her excerpts. Some things to think about...

Silicon.com: Social networking sites as infection hotbeds
The social websites are the big target now - MySpace, Facebook...People are less careful and more likely to click on a link or download something. They are open and people can put links or trade files with somebody. I refer to the latest threat report from Symantec, they are seeing a shift away from hacking individual computers to web-based threats.

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The Social: Six Apart, the software company behind blogging platforms TypePad, Movable Type, and Vox, has launched a new Facebook application called "Blog It." Facebook members who install the application can post to multiple blogging services at one time, update their Facebook status in sync with micro-blogging services like Twitter, and have updates from the app appear in their Facebook Mini-Feeds.

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As recession looms, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Slide are taking a go-easy approach before selling shares to the public.

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PC World recently released their list of the 15 biggest disappointments of 2007. Two of the items on that list didn't surprise me, but two other items were shocking to see on the list but in reflection absolutely true.

I wasn't surprised to see that both Apple's "Leopard" OS 10.5 (#8) and Microsoft's Windows Vista (#1) on the list. I've been talking about my disappointment on the state of the computer desktip for sometime now. I'm just glad to see others have noticed the problem so I don't look like Mr. Glum to everyone.

However, I was surprised to see two content management system related items that made the list.

"The dramatic rise of Facebook among professionals has called the question on
"Enterprise 2.0" long before many people were ready or able to confront
it. Some enterprises block Facebook.com on their networks. Others have embraced
Facebook as their Intranet. Most others remain ignorant of the phenomenon, but
probably not for long."

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"Social-networking sites will enlist 230 million active members by the end of the year and will keep attracting new users until at least 2009, according to an analyst report. But investors are still wary — and for good reason, as long-term growth is by no means certain."

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"The rush is on to make killer Facebook applications -- but is there more hype than money in the endeavor?"

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