• 30 seconds- Time it takes for a typical email to be sent to someone I know.

• 2 seconds- Time it takes for Twitter to update my tweets and send them out.

• 1 second- Time it takes to send an IM

• 1 WEEK!- Time it takes for facebook to tell me that someone wrote on my wall.

This is ridiculous and it seems like it should be a major concern for facebook and the people who have invested hundreds of millions of dollars. As others have notices, the instantanious connection that twitter provides should really make facebook consider how they are doing things on their site. Yes, they provide a much larger news feed of what your friends are doing, but if the news is on pace with a weekly magazine, how relevant is it in the world we live in today?

It sounds like facebook will be launching an on site IM service on Monday which will allow people to chat with other people who are online. This will be a nice service, but I am surprised that it is so far up on the priority list for Mark Zuckerberg and Co. With so many people already on AIM, MSN, GChat, and the many other services that work with eachother and can be used without being logged onto a specific site I don’t see facebook’s service taking off that quickly. Yes, it will work. Yes, I’ll probably use it a few times. But no, it won’t make me stay logged into facebook all day long.

What facebook should be doing is working on speeding up their news feed as well as how quickly they notify you of new messages and wall posts. I don’t live on facebook because there isn’t enough of a stream of new information being sent through my news feed. When someone writes on my wall, if I don’t find out about it for a week then the chances of that message being relevant in todays world of connectivity are very very slim.

Facebook needs to stay on top of the game if they wanto ever cash in on their $15B valuation.