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Daragh McManus: Facebook's last chapter

Is the world finally falling out of love with Facebook? For the second consecutive month, user numbers for the social networking whatchamacallit have dropped in the UK, US and elsewhere.

I've never quite understood the popularity of Facebook. I don't like the layout, how it sprawls down the page like someone has upended a bucket of text and tiny graphics and let them spill all over the screen.

And I don't get the point: it seems to fall somewhere between blogging, email, news feeds, a wildly unfocused DB and the most tedious conversation you ever had by the office tea-maker.

Whether I like it or not, though -- and Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) probably doesn't lose too much sleep over my opinion -- Facebook is popular beyond belief, with more than 650 million users.

Earlier this year the company was valued at $50bn, which in fairness is lunacy. It doesn't produce anything; it doesn't sell anything that theoretically can't be got elsewhere. It's all clouds and mist and concept and perception. I wouldn't be surprised to see Facebook go the way of MySpace: once worth half a billion, now yours for a crumpled fiver and a packet of Werther's.

In fact I'm half-considering starting up my own rival to Facebook. Stalk-a-Pal.com: a brilliant new social networking "solution" which helps track down that old schoolmate who punched you in the nose in 1987. And then keep tracking them down, forever and ever.

I call it Revenge 2.0. Any reckless capitalist who feels like blowing a few million shekels, I'm in the book.

THE WORD OF SAINT ANTHONY

Tony Blair truly is -- for want of more eloquent phrasing -- a weird guy. I always thought he was just your average git of a politician, you know, a soulless automaton wrapped in a snazzy suit. Like the rest of them.

But the truth, I fear, is far worse: he's genuine in what he says. And a total cuckoo-bananas flake.

Here's a recent quote: "To be faith-literate is crucial in a globalised world. I read the Bible every day. I read the Qur'an every day . . . it is immensely instructive."

Sorry, what? I think I'm going deaf in one ear, can you repeat that?

So Tones believes that these hideous Stone Age fairytales -- categorically proven to be the two worst books ever written -- are "immensely instructive".

Well, yeah, sure. You ever need to know what to do in the event of a Godly, planet-soaking deluge, the Bible's gotta be your first reference point. (Tip: build a boat with magic powers.) Or if for some bizarre reason you want to find out about divorce proceedings in seventh century Arabia, obviously the Qur'an is the only place to look.

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