Fashion victim, fashionista: these are words not easily applied to me. However, I have learned one valuable lesson over the years by observing an industry that's always on the lookout for the next big thing: if you wait long enough, past trends and patterns will make a comeback. This is exactly to the case with social media right now. As all things social start to mature, the same evolution that took place in the digital marketing industry only a few years ago is emerging: social is fast becoming less about experimentation, and more about regular production.

I hope you agree that every now and then, it's actually time to revisit MySpace, the site about which Gawker said earlier this week: "MySpace shares user data with advertisers, too, if anyone cares."

Where were you the morning of Thursday, October 21, 2010? I happened to be in a series of meetings. Yet if you were walking down a certain street in Singapore, you would have seen my face projected on to the side of a building, clearly visible in the night given the 12-hour time difference. Much to my relief, this caused no major panic in the region; the Singapore Exchange Limited opened 10 points higher Friday morning (yes, I checked). I sadly missed the moment, choosing the wrong time to pay attention to my colleagues and thus missing the video feed.

I know, I know. A lot of us rolled our eyes earlier this week when The Wall Street Journal breathlessly announced that its exclusive investigation had revealed another Facebook privacy breach, this one about personally identifiable information leaking out while no one was looking via the social net's third-party apps.

How do you share insights from nine panelists spending 50 minutes discussing what works with social media? You don't. But given that I was one of the nine, I can at least share one person's perspectives, including answers to questions that weren't even asked.

The recession that ended a while ago doesn't seem to have ended. The "system" for foreclosing on homes is an unmitigated disaster. It has been a season of woefully bad news. So, in America, what this means is that the most pressing issues of our time are the changing -- and changing back -- of the Gap logo, and that SunChips' compostable bags are way too noisy. Good God.

The overhaul of Facebook Groups last week builds on the ideals of the 1980s and early 1990s. It's only halfway there, though, as it has the potential to be something much bigger.

Now that I've had a full 20 hours to process Facebook's latest announced changes, here's my takeaway: the moves are Facebook's recognition that it is a network, but a network full of individuals. As Mark Zuckerberg (you know who he is, right?) said on the Facebook blog yesterday: "The biggest problem in social networking is helping you easily interact with your friends and share information in lots of different contexts."

How old were you when you first learned not to talk to strangers? It's one of those rules parents try to instill at an early age, right up there with eating vegetables and not watching TV before finishing homework. In my adult life, I've fallen short in all regards. Anyone who's seen my photos on Foodspotting knows I don't eat nearly enough produce, I'm prone to playing Angry Birds when there's work to do, and it's part of the job to talk to strangers all the time. Beyond that, though, I'm realizing that I've been benefiting regularly by listening to …