Jackie Cooper PR runs an 'anonymous' (not any more) blog called The Pirate Geek. A couple of days ago, it posted a paeon to personal contact, honesty and the demise of the cult.

I arrived there from Edelman Analyst Relations man Johnny Bentwood's Technobabble 2.0 personal blog. Cheers Johnny. (Although, for the record, I should mention that Edelman owns JCPR.)

Anyway, this all happened shortly after BIMA's 'Great Facebook Debate' which I tipped you off about earlier this year (more on that in November's column) in which a bunch of knowledgeable people on stage, and an even bigger bunch of knowledgeable people in the audience, debated the merits and otherwise of Facebook.

Facebook, for those unfamiliar with it, is a place to hang out, link up with friends, see what they're up to, find and join groups of like-minded souls, do silly things like 'poke' and 'super-poke'. Shame about the translation - think 'nudge' and you'll be close. Groups can be closed or open, public or not. And a ton of plug-ins allow you to do other things. Think 'long tail'. The majority are pointless to the majority of users. Vampire bite anyone? Gift of a toilet roll? Some are useful too.

You may be astonished to learn that businesses are taking to Facebook in droves. Whether they're enlightened or mad remains to be seen. But the BBC (is that a business?) and BT (that definitely is) have thousands of users.

Because Facebook was honed in the hothouse of the university (it started in Harvard) its focus was on facilitating relationships and friendships. It's mind-numbingly easy to use, compared with, say, a wiki. It is intensely social. But it's not just about online communication. In the end, it's a facilitation mechanism for personal contact with the people you really want to be with, whether they're at work or out there in the real world.

In the workplace, especially, the consummation of stimulating online hookups has to be physical meetings because that's where the real relationships form and the real work gets done.