Life is High School…

Ahhh, Facebook, the site that launched 500 million sites; the world’s clamoring social bazaar ; that intoxicating mix of narcissism and vanity that usually peaks in high school.

There’s a well-worn axiom that goes something like this: you’re nobody ‘til somebody sues you. Well, Facebook has truly arrived. Recently, a suit was filed contending that Facebook was originally a work for hire that was intended to be a computerized high school year book. The veracity of this claim will no doubt get hammered out in the gauntlet of the legal process. But one could scarcely take issue with the metaphor of the original idea, the value proposition it represented and the audience that it was meant to serve.

What remains surprising is the emotional appeal of this concept for so many people who are clearly no longer in high school. To the point where several critics, Nicholas Carr among them, have argued that it’s time to get a life or at least become conscious that one exists away from the gadgets and tweets that absorb us.

But while we were thoroughly engrossed in what you had for lunch yesterday, something else was happening; Facebook was growing up and turning into that anxious, awkward adolescent that successful ventures eventually become. The question is can Facebook navigate its own right of passage or will it peak in high school?

Most of us remember the hyperbolic success of a firm like AOL, whose youthful hubris resulted in one of the most misguided business blunders ever recorded. Not an uncommon result when too much money meets too much success that harbors too many expectations. Facebook has all of this.

So the question is has Facebook peaked?

Has it gone as far as its current value prop can carry it? Will the captain of the football team marry the prom queen and live happily ever after?

The money will always ask for more.

But sometimes high school is as good as it gets.

Stay tuned.