On my recent trip to Seattle, I visited the offices of iLike in the Capitol Hill section of that lovely Pacific Northwest city to take a video gander at one of the more interesting start ups to emerge from the social-networking arena.

The music discovery site, unlike a lot of others in its sector, has been plugging away for several years with much less funding–about $16 million from the founding Partovi twin brothers, former AOL (TWX) wunderkind Bob Pittman and a big slug from Ticketmaster (IAC)–but with a lot more impact.

Like its competitors, such as Last.fm, it has forged its popularity by focusing on linking its users with one other and musical artists via what they like to listen to.

Kind of like that old shampoo cliché: She told two friends and she told two friends and so on and so on and so on.

It’s actually quite an infectious app and also Web site, with 30 million registered users, and it’s one of the few that is useful on social-networking sites like Facebook, hi5, Orkut and Bebo.

So useful, in fact, that Facebook has selected the service as one of only two “preferred” partners, a designation Facebook announced today at its second developers conference in San Francisco.

iLike was the brainchild of Ali and Hadi Partovi, longtime Web entrepreneurs who have also worked at big companies like Microsoft (MSFT), and whose interest in music and online delivery was the inspiration for the site.

To make money, iLike has a number of businesses.

First and foremost it is essentially a lead-generator for sites like Amazon (AMZN), iTunes, Ticketmaster, and more recently, the Rhapsody subscription music service, with which it just added a somewhat restricted full-song playback offering.

And iLike has just launched an ad platform for concert promoters.

The brand itself, although focused on music right now, obviously has extension possibilities (iLike movies? iLike TV? iLike tacky theme parks?).

Most observers of iLike assume it will sell to a larger entity eventually, such as Ticketmaster, for whom the site has become a major referrer.

But the Partovis–who have sold start ups before–insist they want to build the iLike brand.

Here’s a video interview with Hadi Partovi in which we talk about all this and more, along with a tour of iLike’s offices:

Why? Apparently because inane is the goal! Well then, I guess: Mission accomplished!

At an appearance at the Web 2.0 Summit yesterday, a group on a panel called “Facebook as a Platform,” led by Dave McClure, talked about a lot of stuff.

But it seemed to get lively when the discussion turned to my comparison of the boom in third party apps on Facebook to the arrival in my home of a box of shiny plastic toys from China.

I was at home with my own actual 2-year-old playing a rousing game of hit-mama-with-the-foam-finger- and-crack-up-hysterically, when the group–which included Seth Goldstein of SocialMedia, Ali Partovi of iLike, Keith Rabois of Slide and Lance Tokuda of RockYou–declared me humorless.

All because I did not realize that these apps were meant to be silly and more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

Actually, I did know that and, by the way, monkeys are much more fun.

Here was my initial argument:

But, so far, as popular as those apps have become, what [Facebook founder Mark] Zuckerberg and the widget-makers have wrought is mostly silly, useless and time-wasting and the kazillion users of these widgets are pretty much just acting like little children.

“I never thought I would call the often frivolous AOL back in the day–very simply, a Neanderthal version of Facebook–a mature offering in comparison.

“While I will admit when I am not chewing nails that a lot of these apps are somewhat fun, I can’t help but ask myself that lyric from the old Peggy Lee classic: ‘Is that all there is?’

“And if that is all there is, can Facebook really build a viable and long-lasting business on what is essentially a bunch of games that will ultimately become wearying for users? Doesn’t it need more robust apps that actually are useful and relevant and make Facebook the service that Zuckerberg has often told me was a ‘utility’?

“While Facebook–with a cleaner and more strict look and a better navigation–is surely less goofy than rival MySpace for anyone over 12 years old, and its video, photo and email features are nice, the vast majority of its apps are still mostly as dumb as a box of hammers.”

“Kara’s argument is ridiculous,” said Slide’s Rabois, according to a report on Wired.com.

“Why do people watch movies and TV? Because they’re bored or looking for something to do to relieve stress in their lives. Apps are providing entertainment to users.”

Really, Keith? I had no idea, despite the fact that “Gilligan’s Island” was my favorite show for way too many years!

Seriously, I know what he is saying and I agree on the need for some fun on this tragic little spinning globe of ours, except:

1. I would be fine with silly widgets, if there were more serious ones too, well beyond Vampires and SuperPokes and even an app called Pop Ur Zit. All of these have the longevity of a gnat, designed to be faddish and quickly forgotten. And, if you are going to be fun, one might try a little harder to come up with some offerings that are a little less disposable.

In fact, on a recent visit I made to RockYou HQ (post coming Monday), its savvy tech lead noted that there was surely a limit to how much crap people wanted to throw at each other.

2. Entertainment, especially the idiotic kind, will not get you to massive sustained usage that characterizes a true paradigm shift that McClure claimed was happening.

For example, was it all the games that made the personal computer become a ubiquitous device? No, it was serious programs like VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3.

So where are those kind of apps for systems like Facebook, I wonder, as I noted in another post about what to do with a group of 2,500 techies I have gathered on the social-networking site. So far, we have a whole lot of nothing to offer them.

3. Another argument made on the panel was that the blogosphere used to be disdained as goofy only a few years ago and now it is a true media power.

Well, it was never disdained by me and, actually, there were a lot of substantive and important blogs even back then to balance out the fluffier ones. In fact, there were more.

4. As RockYou’s Tokuda said, referring to me: “I believe for her the apps are useless because she’s not a teenage girl.”

This is not a news flash, although I probably am one of the older diehard fans of “Hannah Montana.”

But it is not necessarily true that advertisers will flock to these widgets, just because the kids love it.

Because as much as advertisers want to reach a younger demographic, they also do not want to do it in an environment of frivolous engagement and I doubt there is much appeal to them when people are busy slapping each other digitally or cartoonifying their friends. In addition, advertisers want to reach people who will buy things and few are in that mindset when they are anonymously telling someone else the “honest” truth or being a Human Pet.

I could go on, but will stop there, so the Lollipop Guild can respond in crayon.

But here’s one offer I will take RockYou’s Tokuda up on: A promise he made onstage to build something just for me.

Just some guidance, Lance: No poking, slapping, tickling or zit-picking.

Call me old-fashioned, because I know you will anyway.

In a you-hurt-my-feelings post on his blog earlier this week, entrepreneur Marc Canter (pictured here) turned my one little quip to his bellowing question at the recent iLike party into a huge deal about why he was not invited to the D: All Things Digital conference that I co-produce with Walt Mossberg.

At the party, Canter got up and asked a question (and it was a good one about developing iLike apps for platforms other than Facebook). It came in the middle of a very short speech iLike co-founder Ali Partovi was giving, essentially thanking everyone for coming, most especially Facebook, where the social music site has seen great growth.

Canter had every right to ask a question in his usual unique style (let’s just say he is not a shrinking violet).

To be fair, neither am I, so I think it fine that I said: Someone get out the Canter Taser! It was a joke, however funny you might find it or not.

But I did not say it because I thought he was being rude or because I thought he should not DARE (his caps in his post) to ask a question. He can dare and I don’t care.

Nonethless, Canter took the ball and barreled down the field at full bore, first by incorrectly saying I did not want him to ask the question:

“But I don’t play by those rules. So no wonder I don’t get invited to AllThngsD [sic]. And why Kara never videotapes me. Clearly I have nothing to say!,” he wrote. “Kara knows she can’t control me and that I don’t play by the ‘be nice to the VCs and high level execs and maybe they’ve invest in you’ rules.”

Here’s the problem: D is not an invitation-only event and never has been. Anyone can sign up for it, much like any other tech conference, as long as they buy a ticket.

But, since its inception, D quickly sells out, and we have a long, long wait list. And we can’t offer more seats because of restricted space in the hotel we throw the annual event in.

This a good problem to have, but it means not everyone can get a seat. The same is true for the huge amount of press and bloggers we let in for free–another long wait list.

That’s why we have posted the entire D5 conference–every interview and every demo–in its entirety on this site, located here. At the conference, we also immediately posted short highlight videos immediately after sessions were over. We also have much of the other four conferences there, too.

As to videotaping Canter–I would be happy to, so I would prefer he not make it up that I will not. I simply have not gotten to him. I think of Canter as an interesting figure in Silicon Valley and an important inventor.

So I urge him to contact me when he thinks I should be covering something. I won’t always cover it, but I will always listen to what he has to say.

Also, Canter might take a gander at the videos from all the D conferences I referenced above. While we might not pass Canter’s tough test, I think they are pretty good.

In addition, any reader of this blog will know that I have not been a wet noodle to either Facebook or Yahoo of late.

At end of his post, Canter noted: “I’m not interested in pre-canned, shilled company pitches.” Well, you can Taser me if I am lying, but neither am I.

On a lighter note, if you did not see it, here is the post and below is the video I did from the iLike party. By the way, Canter might notice I headlined the post, “iLike Kisses Up to [Facebook Founder and CEO Mark] Zuckerberg,” which is exactly the point he was making:

So, last night, they threw a party to celebrate their start-up called iLike and also send some appreciation in Facebook’s direction.

After all, their social music discovery service is one of the most popular third-party applications on the hot social network, with seven million Facebook users (out of 11 million total), hypercharging the Seattle-based iLike.

Funded by Ticketmaster (IAC), Khosla Ventures, Bob Pittman and with a cast of top tech players as advisers, it is one of the widget wonders of the moment.

Facebook founder Zuckerberg was at the party, as well as many others in the Facebook widget universe, which is ruling Silicon Valley at this moment, with their zombie bites and silly polls and cartoonifying software.

They partied in the backyard of a tricked-out house in the fancy Silicon Valley neighborhood of Atherton–the home of Elevation Partners’ Marc Bodnick, an iLike board member.

There, a much hipper and younger demographic than the earlier August Capital party had a late dinner of salmon and all manner of other treats under the stars.

That was capped by a concert from San Francisco’s popular band, Third Eye Blind, which has had many big hits including “Semi-Charmed Life.”

By the looks of things at the iLike party, it is a completely charmed one for the Partovis.