7 stories to read this weekend

What a week! Most of the world was obsessing over the mother of all IPOs — Facebook. So no surprise, I had to include some good writing on the subject. Of course, I have already started looking beyond the social internet and got some good pointers for that.

• NowStreet Journal asks, what would have Facebook S-1 (and IPO) looked like had it come out in the days when tech stocks were given the small stock treatment? Also: Why Facebook is failing, Why Facebook’s growth is slowing so much and Evaluating a big network, which isn’t the same as a big product.
• It is time to move on from the social internet and instead dream of what Gideon Rosenbaltt calls place-based networks.
• Brilliant Kevin Kelly comes out with a list of things/trends that are going to be part of modern society in coming years. It is a delightful little post. I am fixated on Mirror Worlds and GlobeNet he talks about.
• Talking of Kelly and Wired magazine people, John Battelle, the founding managing editor of Wired, writes about Google and its recent moves and puts them in context of Facebook. I am not sure I have read a better post on Google than this one.
• I have never been a fan of Davos and Bruce Nussbaum does a good job of articulating why.  The Death of Davos Man–The Death of Davos is heck of a read. Plus 10 things you are not allowed to say at Davos.
• Information doesn’t want to be free, argues Andy Weissman. Instead, information just wants to be distributed friction-free. I totally agree, and I said so in my piece from last year, Old media is being unbundled, just like telecom was.
• Happiness takes a little magic, says Brian Lam. +1 to that.