Another week, another meaningless Facebook statistic delivered to my inbox. It seems that measuring Facebook and its various activities is an industry all of its own. 

This latest nugget is actually from the VP of Global Sales. In a recent interview, Mike Murphy proudly announced that the number of advertisers on the social networking site has quadrupled since 2009. 

Brand giants such as P&G, Virgin and Unilever have all jumped on the Facebook bandwagon, to the point where a Facebook page pretty much comes as standard in any marketing campaign, much to the annoyance of some media owners. One VP said to me in an interview the other day that it was a case of "one man and his dog - the client expects Facebook to be involved, even though they may not be right for the campaign". 

As brands become obsessed with getting more Facebook fans, surely there will come a point when Facebook becomes so large, and so populated with commercial presence, that the difference between the social networking site and Google starts to blur? 

 Frankly, I haven't compared the number of friends I've got since I was in primary school, and when I think how many daft friend and fan pages I have, surely these metrics need to be carefully analysed. A selection of my fan and group page choices: A campaign to make a sausage roll more famous than Cheryl Cole, and another that celebrates ex-popstar Brian Harvey eating too many jacket potatoes and running himself over. 

I suppose what I'm really asking is - will anything replace Facebook and its endless self-congratulatory metrics? Or do they have the perpetual monopoly? If it was owned by Microsoft, everyone would think it a very sinister thing. 

(And if you're reading this Mr Z - I do like Facebook, I'm just posing the question. So please don't delete my profile or sign me up for a load of FarmVille updates. Thanks)