I wish Robert Scoble, the intermittent blogger, would take a break from making videos, too. In response to criticism of his incoherent videos about would-be Google killers, he's created a fresh set of incoherent videos explaining what friends are and how Facebook understands the meaning of your personal relationships. Again, he pulls out the whiteboard and marker — green this time — to "illustrate" his so-called point, a point that could be better made in a brief blog post. I've watched the painful videos so that you don't have to. But this time, there's some welcome good news.

Recent University of North Carolina graduates Jess Martin and Drew Chen are launching a new Facebook application, SpaceLift, tomorrow. Martin and Chen write in an email: "See MySpace as you have never seen her before on Wednesday, August 29th. MySpace is about to undergo plastic surgery." Like many technically adept college grads, Martin is disdainful of MySpace, but he recognizes that it remains more popular than Facebook. On his blog, Martin posts that he's writing a Facebook app — presumably SpaceLift — to pull data from MySpace and "bridge the gap" between the two sites. Given the complaints that Facebook is turning to MySpace, Martin and Chen may well find that more people would rather burn that bridge than cross it.

The Internet is boring. Even the most interested/interesting man I know, artist and dandy Jonathan Grubb, is bored with it in eight ways. (Granted, he's also super-excited; the man equivocates like he's running for president.) Grubb's insidery analysis speaks to those embedded in the dot-com industry, but here's a wider view of why the Internet is boring, starting with the pinnacle of mediocrity called LOLCats.

An upcoming conference, TieCon Southwest, promises attendees that they'll hear from Sean Parker, the "cofounder of Facebook." One small problem with that agenda item: Parker's not a founder. [Marketwire]

Readers, you amaze us. And fascinate us. And very occasionally, disappoint us. Our corporate overlords, who are all afroth about search engine optimization these days, sent us a list of the top search terms people use to find posts on Valleywag. Photobucket, whose sale to MySpace we broke exclusively, ranks highly, as does Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Fake Steve Jobs. But "webcam sex"? "Lick it"? "Hot Asians"? Really, people. Behave yourselves. The full list, after the jump.

Robert Scoble, the former Microsoft evangelist and die-hard PodTech videoblogger, has ended his brief departure from the Web. Clearly he thinks he's "adding value" with his bold theory that "Mahalo, TechMeme, and Facebook are going to kick Google's butt in four years." You won't be able to read his theory, of course, since he has, tiresomely, recorded it on video. But you can see the sincerity in his eyes, hear it in his voice, and watch him pull out the whiteboard and three, count 'em: three, colored markers! In truth, he's just revealing what he has always been: a confused evangelist who doesn't understand the underlying technology, doesn't have his facts straight, and can't keep his story consistent. But, boy, is he enthusiastic about it! Why? I think he's lobbying for his next job.

Those who can't do, teach. And those who teach, when it comes to Facebook, are charging handsomely for the privilege. RockYou, a maker of Web "widgets," those Web pages in miniature that clutter up blogs and MySpace pages, has not, apparently, figured out how to make money directly off of the Facebook apps they've created like Super Wall and Zombies. The Sequoia Capital-backed startup has, however, figured out how to make money from Facebook app developers. How? By charging them to sign up users by advertising their apps on RockYou's Facebook apps. The fee? Half a buck per user. It sounds like the perfect Ponzi scheme: As long as venture capitalists and clueless big companies are overpaying for startups based on the number of Facebook users they've signed up, it should work brilliantly. After the jump, slides from RockYou's pitch to fellow application creators.

YouTube founder Steve Chen worked, briefly, at hot social network Facebook, after cofounding YouTube but before the video site took off. His short tenure there made, nevertheless, a lasting impression on the staff. "Steve Chen is notorious for never turning in his laptop," one Facebooker remarked when the YouTube founder's name came up in conversation. Chen, according to Facebook office gossip, never returned his Facebook-issued computer after leaving the company, despite requests for its return. A Google spokesman disputed this account, saying that Chen did return the laptop, and that Facebook CEO "Mark Zuckerberg is aware of it." Asked when the computer was returned, the Google spokesperson replied, "I assume when he left the company." And what do they say about assuming?

Broadcast network NBC has inked promotional deals with almost every major Internet player to distribute the pilot episodes for its new fall lineup. Almost, that is, because it appears to be shunning Google's YouTube online-video site, as well as the News Corp.-owned MySpace. According to The Hollywood Reporter, episodes of new shows "Chuck," "Life," and "Journeyman" will be available for download on Amazon beginning September 10. If you'd prefer to download using Apple's iTunes software, sign up for the Apple Students group on social network Facebook. Members of that group get a one-week headstart on downloading the pilots. Prefer to stream your entertainment? Beginning in mid-September, you can catch "Life" on AOL, "Journeyman" on MSN, and "Chuck" on Yahoo. But it's the omissions that are really interesting.

A tip for those of you trying to mingle with successful entrepreneurs and VCs: Attend more than just the standard tech meet-and-greets. The people who are really in a position to help you with your startup never go to them anyway. So where to go instead? Check out events like last night's Lotus Vodka release party at SoMa's Euro-inspired restaurant Supperclub. You'll find founders and the moneymen behind them willing to chat and unable to prejudge you based on your nametag. Refreshing. Bonus: The nontech people who attend these things make for a far better-looking crowd. Far better-looking. The full report, and a gallery of photos, follows.

Every year, we at Beloit College publish a "mindset list" to identify the worldviews of the year's entering college freshmen. The "class of 2029" refers to students entering college this fall, in 2025. Most of these students are 18, which means they were born in 2007. For them, Anna Nicole Smith, Steve Irwin, Ray Charles, James Brown, Saddam Hussein, and Robin Williams's career have always been dead.

PlayboyU is stealing a page from Facebook — Facebook circa 2004, that is — and launching a college-only social network, restricted to people with ".edu" addresses. With help from Ning, it's starting PlayboyU — but not, sadly enough, delivering the goods in the form of nude coed shots. No matter. The college-only restriction limits the potential audience. And why would college kids, when Facebook and MySpace exist, bother to sign up for this website? The association with a porn brand alone should be enough to scare most students off. One thing Playboy forgot: ".edu" addresses include professors and alumni, who might take an interest in students' extracurricular activities on the site. We're placing the site on immediate deathwatch.

Too cheap to spend $150,000 on a sponsored group? For today's savvy ad buyers, Facebook offers the bargain-basement "Flyer.". A mere $5 buys you 2,500 ads, served up to your network of choice. A sweet deal, unless you're a discerning marketer who demands his $5 worth. To know if their online ad dollars are well spent, most people turn to click-through rates. But Facebook, conveniently, doesn't offer such data to Flyer purchasers. "Unfortunately we can't provide you with a click-through-rate for your Flyer. These rates vary drastically from one Flyer to the next because they depend on the interest that is generated by the ad's content." Um. Isn't that the case with all Internet advertising? Anyways, this strengthens the widely held assumption that Facebook has a smug, Mark-Zuckerberg-knows-best attitude — and that Facebook's banner ads are ineffective. Except, perhaps, for tarnishing one's brand.

Poor Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. The athletic and very identical twins are suing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg over claims that he stole their idea for a college social network. Now, too, though, they're suffering much the same security woes as their better-known rival, and, if that's possible, not as gracefully. Just as Facebook had its source code leaked, someone has discovered that ConnectU, the comely twins' site, has major security flaws of its own. Flaws so obvious, says the engineer who discovered the flaw, that they beggar the imagination.

MySpace, the News Corp.-owned social network for the unwashed masses, heroically sued spammer Sanford Wallace to stop him from abusing the site. Wallace allegedly created 11,000 fake profiles and spoofed MySpace login pages to gain access to legitimate users' accounts. MySpace also claims that he used an automated program to control the fake and hijacked profiles to send out links to adult-oriented websites in comments and messages, bringing him enough traffic to collect about $1 million in revenue from his websites. A federal court injunction prohibits Wallace from having a MySpace profile or sending emails implying that he is affiliated with the Fox Interactive Media property. Pity, that. For a while, Wallace made it look like exploiting emo teenagers with unfortunate hair was an even easier way to riches than writing a Facebook app.

Workers say 43 percent of employers block access to Facebook, according to a poll conducted by Internet filter provider Sophos. Most businesses fear productivity loss; Sophos, we suspect, smells a marketing opportunity. [CNET]

It was all in good fun, I thought, to tease my former boss Jason Pontin, now editor of MIT's Technology Review, about using Facebook, of all things, to hunt for interesting startup ideas. But the well-meant mockery soon uncovered a deeper issue: My friend misunderstands how one is meant to use Facebook. Pontin, ever the technoliteralist, takes Facebook at its word, thinking of it as a tool to replicate real-world relationships. He misses the real use that self-promoters like Jason Calacanis and Robert Scoble have discovered: Spamming the less-important people who have volunteered to be your "friends" — people who are really just fans, to whom you have no meaningful relationship.

Legendary satire publication The Onion presents a faux-magazine cover story with the headline every editor in the Valley wishes he could run about Facebook's CEO — but knows he can't. (Image by The Onion)

In an effort to waste even more worker productivity and to cement itself as a dominate form of social interaction, Facebook now allows you to send messages to email addresses. You'll never have to log off again. [CNET]

Lost productivity due to surfing Mark Zuckerberg's social network is costing Australian companies $4 billion a year, says a report issued by Internet security company SurfControl. However, the study's a bit suspect: The company also sells Web-filter software which ostensibly blocks such time-wasting activity. [Techdirt]