Eideard

The number of people accessing the net on mobile phones could soon outstrip the capacity of networks, experts warn.

When you see a tech article that includes “experts warn” in the first sentence, understand that the whole concept was probably offered to the publisher by a PR firm employed by those who are profiting from the technology in the warning. Or their own in-house spin merchants.

Mobile data traffic looks set to rise 25 fold by 2012, said mobile analyst firm Informa. The boom could present operators with problems as revenues generated by those using such mobile data services will only double over the same time period.

“Revenues from data are increasing much slower than traffic,” said Dimitris Mavrakis, mobile network analyst from Informa. “Where operators are experiencing exploding data traffic, revenues are not following them.”

Ah-hah. We get the hook early on. We are enjoined to help the poor, struggling wireless carriers to increase their profits – or we shall all die in a hell absent adequate mobile phone access.

Graham Carey, a spokesman for network optimisation firm ByteMobile, said the history of mobile networks also made it harder to handle the always-on nature of many smartphones and laptops.

Then, we get a listing of the micro-disasters that only can be solved by heading off Net Neutrality at the pass – letting the operators raise prices and minimize usage.

“What’s going to happen if carriers do not respond appropriately? They are going to crush the user experience.”

As if wireless companies ever cared about or considered “the user experience”.

Humbug!

Founding a successful website is normally a story that would interest only a handful of computer obsessives. It would certainly not be the subject of a million-dollar publishing deal and a Hollywood movie brimming with A-list talent. But then Facebook is no ordinary website.

A book about the beginnings of the globally popular social networking site, which now has more than 200 million users, is set to hit American bookshelves on 14 July. And far from being a story of bespectacled nerds, it promises to be a tale of sex with Victoria’s Secret models, hard-partying champagne bashes and the dark deeds of the rich and powerful.

The cover of the book, The Accidental Billionaires, sets the raunchy tone. It features an overturned cocktail glass and a discarded bra next to the blurb: “A tale of sex, money, genius and betrayal.” The exposé is written by the Boston-based author Ben Mezrich, who has previously, and controversially, chronicled the deeds of Las Vegas gamblers, high-powered financiers and Japanese gangsters.

Purporting to tell the story of Facebook’s founding by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and his friends, it charts the site’s rise from a private project aimed at judging the attractiveness of his fellow students to a way for classmates to keep in touch, and eventually to a global phenomenon valued at billions of dollars.

Along the way Mezrich paints a story of backstabbing, wild sex, hard drinking and, at one stage, feasting on roasted koala on a yacht owned by a Silicon Valley millionaire. “No one has really succeeded in making Silicon Valley sexy. But this book might,” said Caroline McCarthy, a journalist for the technology website CNET, who has reviewed a rare advance copy.

Perhaps no wonder, then, that The Accidental Billionaires is the subject of a major movie deal after actor Kevin Spacey signed on to produce it. Spacey even wrote a review of the book on its Amazon page, calling it “a captivating story of betrayal, vast amounts of cash, and two friends who revolutionised the way humans connect to one another – only to have an enormous falling out and never speak again”.

That’s about as much of the pre-release crappola I can stand. RTFA if you want more.

Like – is this what Social Networking is all about?