Hard to miss the reviews, the loving tributes and the non-stop attention to Facebook these days. Why all the fascination with a social network that has been around since 2004?

Apart from the fact that it was started by a student, and is run by a 22-year old, is what Facebook stands for. It “has Google sweating” (Advertising Age), is the Future of everything online (TIME), and is Advertising’s worst nightmare (Guardian).

As Lev Grossman in TIME says, Facebook is really about making the web grow up.

What this means is that it is not only stamping on the footprint of other business models, but pointing in the direction where they ought to be headed. And unlike in previous movements, where it was fashionable to follow and try to predict where the CEO of the company was taking the product (think Murdock, Ballmer, Bezos) everyone is trying to figure out what the Facebook members are doing to networks, and the Net itself.

And that’s a much more juicy story.