honestly you need to get off Facebook’s sack. Its a social networking site..which is STILL trailing myspace. Just because they made an acquisition does not mean they are suddenly a powerhouse on the web. Lets see what they do with the technology, lets see how they’ll implement it…honestly this facebook sackriding is almost as bad as Google…which can do no wrong..and apparently everything it touches turns to gold.

Andrew
did you miss the entire point? This isn’t a we love Facebook blindly post, indeed I’m questioning the direction of the company in the broader sense.

The key difference between FB and Microsoft circa 1990 is that Microsoft had a very robust revenue model (and still does). People paid (and still pay) to use Microsoft’s products. FB is still “monetizing”. Much of Microsoft’s strength over the years was derived from its financial powers. Lest we forget, they have *way* more cash on their balance sheet than Google does. That is where Microsoft is still king.

It’s probably more meaningful to compare FB to EBay. FB has a definite community with particular behaviors and needs. But while eBay knows what their users are doing (buying or selling) and how it translates into revenue, it’s not clear what FB users are doing that will generate revenue.

Don’t misunderstand me. FB has a great potential for generating revenue. But it’s much less clear than say Microsoft or Ebay. They have to be a little more creative and perhaps this will ultimately make them very strong competitors in the long run.

Not close. Facebook isn’t the next Microsoft, nor will it ever be. On the web, applications come and go, you cant stop innovation and change because the barriers to entry are too low. This means no one site - or social network - will dominate 100%. You can have large pieces of the pie, but nothing lasts forever. You’re seeing that theory work now as XP is still large, but Vista falters and other systems like the Mac OS and Linux grow in populairty. Its the Rome complex I guess, the larger you get, the more beuracracatic and corporate you become, and the less creative and focused you’ll be. It’ll happen to Myspace and Facebook: they’ll grow huge, lose focus, and eventually lose users to competitors who run tighter niches and are closer to their audiences. Its a cycle.

Can we declare a two week moratorium on any stories about Facebook?

Thanks in advance,
Your Readers

i think duncan has a point …WeB OS …and yes face book should hire duncan i think he bettered what they themselves might be upto

You shall henceforth be known as Duncan Hyberboley. Seriously, all your posts go to 11!

I will second Doug’s analogy of FB::Ebay in the sense that they are both wonderful services that serve one slice of computing life. Microsoft was Microsoft because it was the guts of the computer itself. No OS, no blinky lights. Google is Google because it’s the portal into the world’s data. No search, no stuff you’re looking for. (with due respect to competing OS’s and SE’s)

What is the *essential* aspect to FB? “No FB, no keeping in touch”? For college kids, this does seem to be the case. But is “keeping in touch” the cornerstone of the next great model of computing? Discuss!

Duncan i think you and i were on the same psychic wavelength for this one… i got my post on Facebook isn’t AOL, it’s Visual Basic around 9pm, and i saw your piece right after. (and i swear i didn’t read Scoble’s post until i finished either!)

anyway, the Facebook = Microsoft thing is juicy, but i’m still riding the “Renaissance 2.0″ meme for all it’s worth.

- dave mcclure
http://500hats.typepad.com/

mrkzuckerberg@yahoo.com

Facebook is an English-language social networking website. It was originally developed for college and university students but has since been made available to anyone with an email address. People may then select to join one or more participating networks, such as a high school, place of employment, or geographic region.

The founder Mark Zuckerberg in an exclusive interview says, “I did not want to be left out, sitting on the sidelines watching while so many others like Larry Page and Sergei Brin that chink Jerry Yang and that moron Mark Cuban made incredibly huge amounts of money on the Internet. People are flocking to it in droves. I knew that if I started a site and put in basic software that allows for a free flow of information that is personal and private then I would make a fortune from scratch with the speed of rabbits breeding and multiplying. I am just a little nerd. I get bored easily with hard work. I worked for a week to create Facebook. I put in basic code. I feel sorry for the dimwits in the old economy who have to work for more than 10 lllong years for a few grand at the end of each month.

“My goal is to not have a job and enjoy luxuriating in five star hotels, eat gourmet meals, sleep for nine hours at night and three hours in the afternoon, watch four films a week without working to pay the bills. The day I launched Facebook was the day I hit the lottery. I will not to worry about holding down a job and upgrading my skills so that I can make a few more grand at the end of each month. That is so old school. At Harvard I read news story after news story of dot-com millionaires made overnight. I read once that some dimwits who started their own e-commerce Internet Website two years ago sold it to Barnes & Noble, for 664 million dollars. In the old economy you have to slog the whole month for a few lousy grand.

“The great thing about the net is that though I was totally confused by the Internet, even though I had no time to learn computer stuff, even though I am too lazy to master a whole new set of computer-related skills none of that matters. In fact I realised at Harvard that I did not need special education…… virtually no money put at risk. All I had to was to spare time and the willingness to follow very easy-to-understand instructions. So simple even a 10 year old could do it.

“All I did was steal the original code for Facebook from another social-networking site, now called ConnectU. I simply took ConnectU’s design, source code and business plan, and turned them into Facebook. That is why Facebook is a billion-dollar buyout target, while ConnectU remains pretty much anonymous. A code and business plan are worthless without that certain magic mojo, and dumb luck, which I had. Popular websites emerge, they are not designed. I don’t care that stealing is wrong. If I have a billion dollar website, its mine.

“I was afraid that lawsuits would come. That is why I want Yahoo! to buy my site NOW. If I am found liable then you might as well kiss the American Dream goodbye, if it’s not already goodbye. What was great for me was that somebody else came up with a genius brilliant idea. Since I was helping them with programming the site I saw it as my birthright to steal their intellect, blatantly, ignore copyrights, ignore any prior work done and thus reap the rewards.

“I carefully measured this risk when I started Facebook knowing full well that I had stolen intellectual property from ConnectU. I then decided to go ahead build a user base and monopolise value as quick as possible, become a billionaire and then when these lawsuits come I can brush them off as a nuisance, and offer a pittance settlement of 100 million bucks. For that to happen Yahoo! must buy Facebook for at least eight billion dollars NOW. 23-year-old could come up with 100% of the code, design, and business plan for a website as huge as Facebook. It was awfully convenient that I worked for a company that did a similar design to Facebook. Am I guilty of stealing someone elses’ idea? Morally, sure, but legally? I don’t think so.

“The Internet is The Lazy Man’s Way to getting rich. I’m not kidding about that either. The first thing that is important is not to have ethics. That is why I breached security ay Harvard and violated copyrights and privacy. I had hacked into House websites to harvest images of students without their permission and made money with it. In 2004 I made Facebook, took a leave of absence from the college, and a year later dropped out.

“There’s one BIG thing you need to be successful online and that’s getting the basics down. Face it. You just have to start a site and put in junk software that allows moronic teenagers to share photos, pictures. I spent a few hours each week writing basic code. I often refer to myself as a lazy Internet entrepreneur because I know that there are many things I could be doing to further improve Facebook but often prefer not to. My problem is that I can always find something better to be doing than working like sleeping for three hours in the afternoon. That is why there are so many stupid Facebook applications that impact an entire 0.00000001% of the world. I will now become a billionaire even though I can’t even be bothered to spend a few hours learning how to do some of the most basic tasks. I want at least three billion dollars personally from the deal. I was very upset that Yahoo only offered one billion. Peter Thiel told me that it is worth at least eight billion.

“I must say that thoughts of a hedonistic lifestyle are going to my brain. Facebook is out of control as I am becoming a megalomaniac. The site that was once used to innocently keep in touch with friends has now become a monster that allows and encourages — random people to stalk innocent victims. As per my vision it simply wasn’t enough that friends and fellow students at your college could see profiles and message the person. The past year has brought new features that allow users to add pictures, tag pictures, set a “status” so the whole world and grandpa knows what my visitors are doing and write notes or import an existing blog. And they say celebrities don’t have any privacy. Ha!

“Face it. The user base makes it worth $8 billion. The ad revenue makes it worth whatever it’s worth. The demographics of the user base how much advertisers can be charged. Isn’t it annoying that idiots like me become billionaires?”

“I was lazy I didn’t even graduate from college like Bill Gates. I stumbled upon a technology like a hyperactive kid that took advantage of people’s inherent insecurities. This is only the fastest growing of the three internet models. Once you understand that people are lazy, desperate for information and insecure, you too may be able to become insanely wealthy at a young age.

“Another secret. The most promising area of Internet expansion is that which assuages people’s insecurities. People are lonely. The rapidly growing $2.5 billion Internet pornography industry knows this all too well. People want to feel in control of their lives, image and future. Most importantly, people want to feel connected, loved and popular. Only recently have companies such as Facebook been able to so successfully tap into people’s insecurities.

“The average Facebook user checks the site six times a day. Why are college students so addicted to it? This because Facebook is more than a rolodex with photos. It provides an exact measure of our stature, popularity and coolness. It allows us to place ourselves in a pseudo-fictional world like Hollywood films like Inland Empire, Notes On A Scandal, Grindhouse, Shooter, Crash, Brokeback Mountain, A History Of Violence where everyone we know is pigeon-holed into friend or non-friend. We never have to worry about our looks because with enough Photoshopping we can present ourselves exactly how we want to be perceived. Moreover, everyone on the Facebook is at the center of a massive web of friends. Unsure? Click “Visualise my friends” and it will even draw you a map.

“Appealing to human insecurities is an easier way to make money than writing search engines or actually selling real products in a Mcjob in the old economy. That is so old school. I know 40 year olds in the old economy with Mcjobs. They can make a few extra thousand bucks each month by cleaning their offices after work. Their salaries are so poor they have to claim benefits to make ends meet. Facebook is neither technologically innovative nor expensive to design. I just followed instructions that were so simple even a 10 year old with Autism could have done it.

“For those budding hi-tech entrepreneurs who want to hit the jackpot without working which is what I have done my advice is this: remember that people are lazy, information starved and insecure like my embarrassing uncle Terry Semel. Best of luck!”

Hmm we appear to have a FMZ on our hands

I completely agree with Doug. The whole profit potential of a company boils down to this: Revenue. There isn’t one company which has been wildely successful (financially) with a strong revenue model.

If Google is is able to provide all its services for free, it’s only because they have a solid revenue source, i.e. Adsense & Adwords. Microsoft became microsoft because it had stuff (high quality stuff) to sell. Even Yahoo! being a content oriented portal, dervies its revenues from its services through subscription, transaction and advertising.

I’m not trying to enlighten here about anything, as everything’s just open. Right there in front of you. My point is no matter how many third party applications you integrate, it doesn’t make sense if you aren’t selling.

The basics of business teach you, that in order to earn a profit, you have to sell, that also includes how you turn your investments into profits.

So all I would want to tell the FB guys is, it’s great that you’ve become a magnet for other web based applications. It’s awesome that your user count is climbing at 2,000+ users an hour. It’s superb that things are working out in your favor as far as the social networking thing goes…

But again, the point remains, unless you effectively know and learn how to monetize all these positive points and get people to pay for “something”, it won’t last long enough to become the next Microsoft. You need a lot more then F8 to be Bill Gates!

What does FMZ stand for?

Mustafa and others on the revenue point
good points, and there a plenty of companies out there with good ideas but no revenue. I think though that if Facebook gets to a stage where it’s dominant, the revenue would follow, not unlike the Google/ MySpace deal. There’s also no reason why Facebook couldn’t eventually charge for some premium services as well, for example Facebook as an email platform could follow a similar path to Google with the corporate paid offerings there.

Playing the analogy game are we? Well…MySpace is to Microsoft as Facebook is to Apple.

Gosh! Talk about apples and oranges. Please do your homework before you make such blasphemous comparisons.

Duncan, I think this is a very thought-provoking article. However, there’s one key difference between Microsoft and Facebook that could ultimately break the comparison down.

No one wanted to run multiple operating systems in the 90s because the costs were too high (they would have had to own multiple computers or at least deal with having their data separated on two or more partitions). That reality produced an opportunity wherein a company that provided a well-rounded operating system could capture the market, because people demanded a single operating system that could do everything decently well. People just wouldn’t put up with running multiple systems simultaneously.

On the internet, there isn’t such a high cost of using multiple “platforms” (websites). If you want to switch back and forth between websites, you can just bookmark them in your browser and with a click or two, you’re on a different platform. For that reason alone, there is a reason to question whether any one website can really capture the web market.

Now, the comparison could still hold up, I think, if one of two things occurred in the future. If it turns out that the majority of internet services benefit greatly from either A) a social networking environment or B) having one’s data concentrated all in one specific place, then there could be an opportunity for a particular website, such as Facebook, to capture the web.

The first scenario would, of course, arise most directly out of Facebook’s current operations, as the company currently possesses the best-designed social networking platform. If most web services went truly social (and consumers absolutely demanded a social networking component to their services, whether they be photo, video, or production tool services, or whatever) then Facebook could become the one-stop shop for all of those things.

The second scenario could play out alongside the first or perhaps not at all. It seems less likely, but if it turns out that centralized data (on a platform such as Facebook’s) proves to be a real advantage for service providers, then Facebook could be the place where everyone builds their applications. And by data, I mean all the stuff individuals collect - photos, videos, documents, etc. plus their personal information (the stuff currently in profiles).

If I were to predict whether either of these scenarios will actually play out, I would predict that they won’t. The internet has such a long open source tradition that I doubt Facebook will go for too long without being challenged by a movement that rejects the walled garden approach. Then again, you could say that open source operating systems didn’t save the desktop from being dominated by proprietary Microsoft.

Just my thoughts…

Could Facebook Become the Next Microsoft?

Of course not, all they need is real bootup operating system. Facebook can’t even conquear the toughest country — “Ontario, Canada”.

Mark can’t even program real OS. you need people who are born 1970-1980s (New Silent Generation-X gangs.). Mark was born 1984. He can’t create OS.

Ben/ Sri
MySpace isn’t a platform, there’s no comparing it. Windows and Facebook are both platforms on which people create things on top of. There’s nothing blasphemous about that, it’s a fact, it’s also a fact that Facebook wants you to use Facebook for everything, otherwise Facebook Platform wouldn’t exist. I’m not saying that it’s necessarily a bad thing (now at least) but it still a fact. In some ways I wish had shares in Facebook now

I am Locutus of Borg. Resistance is futile.

I actually agree with you in many ways, Duncan. Nice post. I was a computer geek through the early years and before Microsoft was popular. In fact, I was a diehard Apple fan until around 1994 when their OS(’s) became too unstable for my taste. I loved my Apple IIe!

I can definitely see how Facebook is positioning itself. I can’t believe how addictive the site is. I’m not sure if we’ll ever see a dominate giant like Microsoft in the computer industry, but for social networking, I think Facebook is the one that will take over and stay on top for some time to come. Unless they ruin it. F8 is starting to make it seem a little more like myspace and is raising my eyebrows (and Jawed Karim’s too ).

Duncan,

What is FB’s core value? That it has a lot of users who use it to keep in touch with their contacts. From that perspective the exponential growth that you are seeing now is a natural corollary of the ‘network effect’. Yes, you certainly can superimpose a platform concept on top of it, but out of these 1000 apps that you are talking about how many of them actually provide real value (not counting the ones such as rate–her-looks, guess-the-singer etc).

Why do you think FB paint will leapfrog over photoshop? so that me and my friends can paint together?

This company’s power and valuations (10 billion - ridiculous) are exaggerated by at least a factor 20 or more. There’s isn’t one single feature/characteristic of FB that could not be copied (most of them are already).
So what’s the USP (U stand for *UNIQUE*) of FB? Only it’s current hype. Nothing more.

Let me answer this for you: No.

They will get rich. Dominate the world? No.

The next Microsoft has to dominate the world, not just excite some VC-minded developers about an active user base with visible network effects on low investment dollars.

Let me know when the CTO has all the desktops running facebook (or even as a corporate portal) and I’ll admit that I’m wrong.

Facebook versus Google
Facebook hacks Google
Facebook mocks Google
Facebook destorys Google
Facebook attacks Google
Facebook attacks Google founders

If facebook is evil. I’m staying with Google’s “Do not evil”.

Facebook the next Microsoft?

Either way, Google won’t allow it (that’s their mantle; at least this side of Rupert Murdoch and NewsCorp). Unless of course they owned the company, which at $10B (and climbing) is a valuation still too hard to justify an acquisition.

LJS: watch my videos on my Facebook profile. Tonight I interviewed Siemens Web Strategist. He noted that at Siemens they already have more than 6,000 employees on Facebook (most added in the past month). So, apps for Siemens employees will come soon. Why? I bet more employees will soon be checking Facebook than checking their own intranets.

To people who think this is just hype: you’re wrong. I’m willing to make a $100 bet that’ll go to charity if it turns out that Facebook goes away. This one isn’t going away and is going to be HUGELY successful. You don’t get 6,000 employees at Siemens (and they are FAR from the only one) to join without getting value back in return.

in order to write an real web operating system. you need something like PLAN 9 os.

Duncan -

“MySpace isn’t a platform, there’s no comparing it.”

OK, what happens in 6 months when MySpace release an open API just like Facebook’s? As others have said, there are no barriers to entry on this, nothing proprietary…

“Imagine that in 2-5 years time Facebook has become the No. 1 destination on the web.”

It will most likely achieve this goal. The platform & mini-feed is the secret sauce. The ability to share & discover from/with friends is very important. I don’t think Microsoft does that very well.

Facebook is much much more than a social networking site. Many of the things i do on facebook are because many of my services that i use are building facebook applications for use within facebook.

Microsoft should worry. Facebook will eventually bridge the gap from desktop to web based apps and sharing in a compelling way very soon.

As soon as my desktop apps share with facebook people will fricking wake up. Think about it….Open Office… someone will figure out how to make it work in facebook and I can kiss office goodby.

Cheers!

Rodney Rumford
http://www.facereviews.com

23 Google was founded by a couple of fags.

Microsoft didn’t have to face Google in its early time - even if Facebook tries hard to become Microsoft, Google wouldn’t allow it to as Google wouldn’t want two Microsoft’s to compete with

microsoft has too much of a monopoly.

you’ll have to get MNCs to switch to the new OS before the market will get used to it. Unless you new OS is totally compatible with all the windows softwares lol

http://m-hawk.blogspot.com

If Siemens is planning to substitute their Intranet for an FB application, well then Siemens need a new Web Strategist. It’s another story if they provide a feed that can be integrated into the FB account, but heads should roll for this one

yea sure it could the computer is continuing to evolve towards becoming the hardware of the internet. While the internet is increasingly becoming a social tool whether it be email, blogging, or using social sites like facebook or myspace. So if this new facebook OS can find a way to integrate all that better than anything else you better believe it’ll be the one stop place

I enjoyed the article, but I’m a bit more inclined to compare FB to Google than Microsoft, especially if FB is positioning itself to become the premier Internet destination. And, of course, with a base of 30 million users and more coming every day, Facebook is seriously one ad-agency acquisition away from sizable Internet revenue, making it even more flexible to fight the giant.

I think people banging on about revenue are missing the point. The company already makes money and lets not forget google gets most of its money from advertising…

I think the name sucks and maybe they should do a business offering with a different name.

It’s not Siemens in control (and the same thing is happening at almost EVERY corporation, every one I talk to says they have tons of employees on Facebook — all organically there and there’s absolutely nothing that these companies can do about it).

So, what do you do when your employees all join something and you can’t do anything about it?

You join in.

@Scoble: 6000 Siemens employees is nothing. Siemens has about 500.000 employees, so it’s a mere 1%. If there are about 1,5 billion internet users worldwide (estimate of http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm says 1.1 bio) and 30 mio FB users, about 2% of all internet users must be on FB. So the Siemens number is even below average. And don’t forget: outside North America, FB is virtually non-existant and markets are already grabbed by FB competitors/clones.

matt: there are sizeable barriers to entry. People just don’t move that easily and why would I move to MySpace? What could they do a lot better than Facebook? Right now MySpace is WAY behind. Three years behind, to be accurate. The brand sucks, too, even if it caught up tomorrow through some magical wish (hint, it won’t).

And the apps, and the people on it, are the lock in.

Same way eBay has lockin thanks to the community that sells and buys there.

Geesh, don’t you people learn anything from history?

I REFUSE TO JOIN FACEBOOK! AHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!

No. The answer is simply NO.

Duncan - you are an idiot. Please resign from TechCrunch.

Things MSFT does and does really well:
1. Excel
2. .NET
3. Powerpoint
4. many others

Things Facebook does and does really well:
1. Let’s me poke a hot girl
2. Nothing else

Facebook apps are a joke. You’re never going to use Facebook to do anything mission critical. Why would you trust Facebook with that data? It’s not locally hosted nor is it hosted on a server you have any control over.

So again Duncan, please resign and go live in la-la land with people like Scoble and other idiots who have nothing else to do but join the Facebook circle jerk.

That being said - Mark Zuckerberg is brilliant for having fooled you.

I’m not sure why so many people are hating on Facebook. Facebook is an engineering marvel with an incredibly faithful userbase. And more importantly, it’s respectable. I love MySpace, but it’s the ghetto. It doesn’t matter what kind of API MySpace releases (and honestly, they probably don’t have the technical expertise to do this right - their site still doesn’t run properly), it’ll never get wide adoption from the business community. Facebook already has.

Granted, it’s dwarfed by MySpace, but Facebook is the first company to implement something that resembles a web based OS (I’m talking about F8 here) and have massive pick up. More importantly, Facebook enables other companies to make money on their platform with _no_ strings attached. One of the top reasons Google is so successful is that the more money Google makes, the more money their thousands of partners make. Advertisers win, publishers win, and Google wins. Facebook has the exact same thing going for them, with one major advantage: they have a ridiculously loyal userbase that communicates with each other every day. Has anyone seen the stats on how quickly popular stuff goes viral on Facebook. You don’t get that kind of action anywhere else. That’s worth big money. Furthermore, it’s not inconceivable for FB to launch their own advertising platform.

Facebook is here to stay. Whether or not they get acquired, Facebook is the future.

you’ll never get my mum on facebook

The key to facebook is keeping it semi-private. Facebook is the classier version of myspace. I don’t see nearly the spam on Facebook that I see on Myspace. Myspace has a monopoly on music and that is about it. Facebook will start regulating the apps soon enough based on accesebility+popularity and it will make for a much better app situation

-PT

Jay @ 49

Things MSFT does and does really well:
1. Excel
- which they bought.
2. .NET
- clearly you’re not a programmer.
3. Powerpoint
- you almost have a point here. Shame Wiki’s and online presentations make it utterly irrelevant
4. many others
- er… great point!

Have a nice First Life!

Duncan, lay off the “Kool Aid” (or whatever it is you’re drinking) man.

Scoble - the MySpace brand sucks? 3 years behind? Facebook has barely even been around for 3 years. You live your life in a web 2.0 bubble. You need to spend time in the real world!

…….can’t wait for the Facebook blue screen of death.

But seriously now folks, Facebook doesn’t turn a dime at the moment. It’s advertising model currently doesn’t deliver for advertisers, and while I hear there are plans to basically build semantic connections within the site in order to display behavioral ads (hey maybe even local ads based on ip or postcode- wow!) the whole ad thing doesn’t win me over.

People who are doing one thing - i.e. searching for friends, writing mails, posting photos etc don’t want to click on adverts.

If Facebook introduce another business model, then brilliant, we should re-evaluate it in light of its new found profitability. But the new maxim is that social networking and advertising is like oil and water.

@ matt: the MySpace _brand_ does suck (not to mention the platform technology). MySpace is known for the following:

1) A dangerous and predatory place for teens
2) An ugly, anything goes social network
3) Technology that is constantly breaking down. You almost can’t browse it without getting at least one error
4) A _huge_ porn star community
5) A large party / music oriented community
6) Massive spamming and webcam porn
7) In your face advertising on every page

That doesn’t sound like a brand the average career oriented business person wants to be heavily associated with.

Facebook has none of those issues. Facebook always runs perfectly. It’s clean. It’s based off an academic (ivy league even!) environment. There’s very little spam, and only people you allow can be your friend and see your profile. That adds up to a brand that’s much easier to swallow for someone past say 35 years old.

Also, MySpace’s 150 million users don’t mean shit. Half of those are fake, whereas most of Facebook’s profile are real. And the really beautiful part: FB has over 90% penetration on college campuses. EVERY SINGLE COLLEGE STUDENT USES IT.

To sum up:

MySpace - bunch of party animal porn star spammers with crappy technology.
Facebook - clean and classy with millions of top university students graduating each year and introducing it to the workforce.

Microsoft is the next Microsoft!

When Microsoft started to rocket they did not have serious competition and a huge market. Not just that, they had IBM to take them to market.

Anyone who is dreaming of doing anything REALLY big in the software/IT services sector will have to take on a whole bunch of enourmous companies.

Microsoft has come to where they are because companies that use Microsoft technology make money doing so! How much money do you make wasting your time on Facebook?

Facebook does seem to be going in the Web OS direction, but I must admit… I’m getting quite bored of hearing this so often!