It’s been quite a week for Facebook – wunderkind founder Mark Zuckerberg jumped to 35th on the Forbes 400, rumors of a FB phone were on, then off, then kind of vague, the controversial Facebook-inspired film “The Social Network” hit theater preview screens and, to top it off, the service suffered two substantial outages: a smaller hiccup on Wednesday and a large blackout Thursday that left a big chunk of its 500 million users without their fix for several hours.

So, without the daily minutiae of our friends’ lives to keep us entertained, what did we do on Thursday afternoon? Apparently, a whole lot of us tweeted about it – “Five million people forced to work” and so forth – and for the social media addicts among us, it was at least reassuring that instead of the sound of crickets chirping in the absence of the usual Facebook noise, we heard a chorus of Twittering.

If you’re curious about what actually caused the outage, Facebook bigwigs did provide an appropriately geeky explanation; regardless of the reason, though, it just goes to show how much we all depend on the service. Maybe we’ve got enough proof to at last declare Facebook the new Big Blue.

Did the Facebook outage have an effect on your day? Your week? Your contacts with buddies or your online marketing plan? I’m curious – drop us a comment and let me know.