Or how about $15 billion? That’s the valuation Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly seeking. According to reports, Zuckerberg was seen heading to Seattle to meet with Microsoft about buying a stake in Facebook. Google is also considered a suitor.

Whether Facebook is the face of a new Internet bubble or of the coming paradigm in online advertising is a question that analysts, investors, and other inquisitive types seek to answer. I am not going to attempt to answer it but I will say this: I’m not a big Facebook user. For me, Facebook doesn’t offer enough value for me to participate on a significant level at this time. Sure, I have a profile, and I believe social networking sites and user-generated content have a future on the web. But I question whether the soaring popularity (and hype) that has made Facebook so strong — 42 million users currently — will be able to support the aspirations that its founder and prospective advertisers have for it.

Facebook’s numbers in the past year have been encouraging, with a significant increase in users aged 35+, as the site shifts out of the college-age demographic it started with. Still, I’m not convinced (yet) that the platform, or others like it, can become hubs through which their users experience the web. Remember the hype over web portals? By opening up their platform to 3rd party developers, Facebook seeks to create the Web 2.0 version of one. Facebook has become a Web 2.0 darling, and how this story unfolds bears watching.

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At the dawn of the Internet Age — way back in the mid 1990’s, — Microsoft and Netscape waged what came to be known as the Browser Wars, a battle for the hearts and minds of Internet users. We all know who came out on top then.

With the release of Mozilla Firefox in 2004, a second battle commenced that continues today. It is more competition than conflict this time around, and as a result we have a lot more choices than we did in the days when Webvan seemed like a good idea. For those of you reading this blog on a version of Internet Explorer, I encourage you to investigate other ‘user agent’ options available to you for browsing the web; you might be surprised at what you find. Oh yeah, of course: I am an avid Firefox user with some Camino thrown in occasionally for flavor.

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