We've started to (carefully) explore to what extent there might actually be value in the current crop of social networks. We were involved in earlier waves - from Ryze to the now defunct Soflow - with little to show for it, so we chose to sit out of Facebook and Twitter for a long time, mostly for signal-to-noise issues. Feverish hype or not, I think the jury is still out, but I admit there seems to be staying power here.

Anyway, today's weird FB discovery (in the sense that I just stumbled on it), or maybe it is telling, is the group named El Mar de Chile no Se Regala!!!! which loosely translated is this post's title (though I'm using my own bewildered punctuation). 3,169 members to support Chile's position in one of its territorial disputes with its neighbors! I wouldn't have thought people would create groups around rather arcane geopolitical issues, and that's before Facebook has even been localized. Peru's FB network is half as large as Chile's, which I guess reflects its smaller online population (broadband is expensive in Chile in PPP terms, but I think it's much worse in Peru). The El pisco es Chileno group seems more at home on FB, since the dispute between Chile and Peru over paternity for a regional drink is more of an informal joke of an issue to rant about over a pisco sour. Speaking of which, I like this cocktail but also highly recommend amaretto sour. How's that for a conclusion about world affairs seen through the lens of social networks?