Oh that Steve Ballmer – there’s just something so enjoyable about imagining him getting all worked up over something only to paint himself in a corner he can’t possibly get out of. His latest escapade involves him going off on a tangent in which he calls Facebook and the rest of social networking a “fad” and declares it only appealing to kids. Oh lord, where do I begin?

First and foremost this is an interesting stance because it’s been widely reported now that Microsoft has been having talks to buy into Facebook at a price that would value Facebook at $10 billion dollars. So if Facebook is a fad, Microsoft apparently thinks it’s a $10 billion dollar fad. Do they sell hula-hoops or slap-bracelets for $10 billion dollars nowadays?

Is there a chance Facebook will be a fad? Sure, but that’s only if they completely stop innovating starting right now – which there is no way their going to do. Of course if you use Ballmer’s logic they won’t have to do much to stop innovating:

“There can’t be any more deep technology in Facebook than what dozens of people could write in a couple of years. That’s for sure,”

I mean is that the technology equivalent of a dozen monkeys in a room recreating the works of Shakespeare? If that’s true Steve then where is Microsoft’s version of Facebook? You have THOUSANDS of people at your call and the best you can pump out in Live Spaces and Wallop? I would make fun of them, but they simply suck too much to make fun of and are completely inconsequential in the public psyche. And why on Earth are you even working on such a “fad” on multiple fronts?

Is Facebook worth $10 billion? No. Certainly not right now. But these ridiculous numbers are all about potential upside, something which Facebook might only be second to Google in right now. Microsoft hears the whispers of this and that’s why they’re in the hunt to buy a piece, but Ballmer’s comments make it clear that he has absolutely no idea why there is upside and why this medium is flourishing. Someone told him it’s all about advertising and then someone else told him that’s how he can compete with Google. He doesn’t need to know any more. He doesn’t want to know any more. He wouldn’t understand any more.

And yet there’s more from the Times Online article:

Mr Ballmer also noted that sites such as Geocities, an online community that was bought for $3 billion by Yahoo! in 1999, at the height of the dot-com boom, “had most of what Facebook has.”

Yeah, Geocities had most of what Facebook has, except almost none. If Ballmer doesn’t realize the Internet has evolved far beyond where it was at in 1999 he’s an idiot. Yes, they’re both “communities” – I guess – but even that term has drastically changed its meaning on the Internet in the past 8 years. Geocities was always lame, it was lame in the 90s, it’s lame now. Yes, it was a mistake for Yahoo to buy them for the price that they did but a lot of people were making a lot of mistakes around that time in this industry.

It’s all well and good to poke fun at Ballmer but the fact is that what is going on here is something very simple, Robert Scoble has it dead-on right: Steve Ballmer does not understand social networking and once again it’s something that is hurting Microsoft. How many arenas does Microsoft now just try and push their way into with buckets of cash only for it to be astonishingly apparent that they just don’t get it? Steve Ballmer is the personification of that.

“There can’t be any more deep technology in Facebook than what dozens of people could write in a couple of years. That’s for sure,”

That statement is worth repeating. It’s the exact reason why Microsoft is not going to get anywhere in its quest for Internet domination until Ballmer is gone.