Is the iPhone a consumer device or a business device? Is the BlackBerry a business device or a consumer device? And finally, the ultimate duh question: Are you a businessperson or a consumer? You are "whatever," depending on what you do at that point in time.

Even if you are Jeff Bezos, I'm sure you'll buy something that a Joe Bezos buys every other week. Somewhere down the line, companies seem to have created segments for their own convenience rather than that of their buyers. According to this latest New York Times article, BlackBerry is fending off the iPhone. To do what? Prevent its BlackBerry users from switching to the iPhone in case it begins to look more businesslike. Despo!

Meanwhile, when I launched Facebook (FB) from a BlackBerry today, it enticed me to download its new Bberry app and I did. Man, am I pleased. It doesn't look like a Web app to start with, but does everything Web, of course. It allows me to "poke" friends, receive live notifications, share photos, and does all that as if it were a homegrown Bberry app. From FB's standpoint, it obviously doesn't matter whether I'm signing in from a Bberry (as a business user pissing time between meetings) or from an iPhone (as a consumer acting like an ... er ... consumer). All it matters to FB is that I'm in. And I seem to have plenty of company for FB to get interested in breeding a Bberry baby. Let's drift a bit to FB.

This is how Harsha, my just-turned-18, Toronto-born, Bangalored-a-bit, applying-to-college cousin uses Facebook. He's got about 500+ (yes) friends out there and whenever he logs on, he clicks on the Friends> Online Now tab and to whoever is online, he writes something like this on their Wall (a public writing board): "hey wassup?? Wowzers … is sooo cool 2 cu finaLLEE!!!! howz lifey?" and then he'd respond to someone else, "lmao facebook is my life..:P...random ppl r comin over 2day... nyway... g2go." (lmao is laughing-my-a**-off, for the uninitiated). Then he checks who's updated their profiles; if there are photos, he views them and comments gloriously; if there are no photos, he still sends messages anyway. "This is the way I keep in touch, dude," he explained to me.

And then there are various FB apps (from Zombies to Are You A Moron to Green Cause to Chocolate Bar to What Color Is Your Heart, etc.) that he uses to invoke friends to act. He doesn't use e-mail unless he has to share love with some college admissions contact (e-mail is uncool). And then there's another cousin, Sita, 22, Ivy Leaguer who graduates later this year to get on with medicine and attributes a few low grades to FB. I was strongly recommended by them to create a group page on FB for my company to ramp up hiring efforts and I hesitatingly did. My cousins and their friends will be absorbed into the global workforce in the next five years or so (to fathom what five years looks like, simply recollect your wicked deeds from 2003). How do you think they'll behave?

Let's now look at how I, 33, male, desi-bred, Mumbai-NY commuter, use Facebook that translates to "soooo-not-happening" for my high-school nephews and cousins. Most of my business school and undergrad friends reside both in LinkedIn and Facebook. When I begin to get comfy with my business friends, they migrate to Facebook. When I begin to play business with my friends, they migrate to LinkedIn. I'm coerced to experience my various friends' lives vicariously through their photo albums and walls (hey, can't help it -- FB shows you commented photos on the home page and you eventually end up clicking). When I was in Boston a few months back I messaged a bschool friend from FB after a meeting got rescheduled and I got a call back in 10 minutes. She works for a reputed biotech firm. Today I exchanged FB messages with another bschool friend in Dubai (works for a major consulting company) and with another investment banker in NY. If you are thinking FB is for teens only, think and think again.

After several invites, I downloaded the What-Color-Is-Your-Heart app and took their test and they said I had a "green" heart (according to the app, a person with a green heart is someone capable of indulging in self-assertion but usually the envious type, possessive yet positive, wee-bit self-centered -- really? all that with so little?). And then I don't know what to do when my 35-year-old undergrad friend uses a Zombie app (a Vampire Slayer -- Web-based software that has 65,839 daily active users -- don't ask) to "bite my neck" or "draw blood." How should I be responding to her -- bite back? (Harsha...help!). That's, um ... odd.

Now back to the original question: Am I a business guy or a consumer? Obviously, both and neither. Should Facebook, Apple, BlackBerry, and their thousands of partners who create solutions on these platforms (fyi -- 10,000+ apps built on FB) target me? Answer: Yes, absolutely. Why? Because I don't even know what I'll click. I play Brickbreaker on the Bberry like a teenager, use Facebook to establish business relationships, send "wassup" messages to buddies on LinkedIn, and read the NY Times religiously on my phone. What if plenty of my 30+-year-old friends start "biting" me -- won't I be peer-pressured into downloading the ridiculous Zombie app?

Nyways, g2go. ... my Bberry's blinking with FB activity. Meanwhile, if you are out there sitting in pin stripes and a swivel chair, a good start will be unlearning what you know about segmenting and getting yourself a daily fix of segment: N=1.