Lots of fuss last week over an Associated Press-Ipsos poll, which revealed that the U.S. is “a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year.” This explains among other things the lack of actual “Books and Literature” discussion going on in the typical internet chat room of the same name.

With a little bit of research I was able to determine however that there is a very logical explanation for this phenomenon. The cost of books has apparently risen astronomically, keeping all but the very wealthy from reading the latest summer potboiler. At £3m, or about $US 6.05m, Dancing With The Bear, is typical of what the average reader now faces at Barnes and Noble or in the supermarket checkout line.

I know it seems I’ve been hating on Facebook a bit lately, but that’s the way it is with cultural icons. I’ve been hammering away at the pre-eminent social networking app, and in the true spirit of blogging, freely criticizing its features and user interface (while keeping my Facebook home page up constantly and eagerly checking to see if anyone has sent me a message or written on my wall).

I had a technical question recently and was of course unable to contact Facebook directly, so I went to the official Facebook blog. The writing is quite good, and the topics are clearly of interest to many Facebook users, but I think Facebook is missing a real opportunity by having what is little more than a marketing blog.

I did notice a candid September 5, 2006 post by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, in which he discusses the Mini-Feed and News Feed and acknowledges user discontent with the implementation of these features.

However, the posts on the current blog home page are mostly self-congratulatory and completely non-controversial and non-provocative. I was also surprised to see that current blog posts do not permit commenting (though this was a feature that appears to have been previously available.)

A corporate blog ought to have a point of view (other than “Facebook kicks ass.”) It should deal with issues, not just features and subscriber stats. I imagine the Facebook party line on this would be that Facebook itself offers much more in the way of online social interaction than can be found on a decidedly old school platform like a blog. Given Facebook’s recent surge in popularity and membership, and its emergence as the latest social networking phenomenon, one would expect more interesting discussions on the company’s blog.