The money quote from New York Times blogger Saul Hansel raises some interesting questions:
Think about Facebook. If you like Facebook, it’s still because of its core features — the way it lets you communicate and keep tabs on your friends. If you like any of the new applications, it is because on the margin they let you do what you already like doing a bit better. You can throw a sheep at someone instead of poking them. I haven’t seen a Facebook application so compelling that you would join Facebook just to use it.
What he’s not taking into account is that the aggregate of all the creativity that goes into an open social environment may approximate or even supercede some of the great features that get people obsessed with Facebook. That possibility is largely up to the individual “containers” (networks) on the system and the API itself.
At this point, if I were Mark Zuckerberg, I’d be taking a wait and see approach to open social while working my ass off to improve the core Facebook features that lead people into these “Facebook killer” conversations in the first place. For example, Robert Scoble spent a lot of time yesterday talking about all the limitations that Facebook places on its users.
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