[bertil]

If a company manages scale at a pace threatening for Facebook and promises to handle the infrastructure accordingly, Facebook can suggest they become compatible using shared ideas of identity, relation, authorisation and activity streams. The two first are elementary (for Facebook) and there are protocols being agreed upon for the two last, with Facebook (David Recordon)'s participation. The guarantee to have a significant share of the market should convince either. Two distinct services cater distinct preferences across ties, optimally for both. The two should be prouder of their ability to suggest, develop and cater features enough to expect to beat the other team with time, rather than gambit compatibility. This was not possible with MySpace because they disagreed on identity and relations; Orkut never was threat enough to deserve such a defensive move. Negotiations on who gets what information to target the ads will be slightly more tense than getting on the last row-boat from the Titanic, but at least one side has a CEO & a COO who have already proven they can handle that.