[wmnwmn]

So, the driving force behind facebook is the newsfeed, which enables people to see everyone's updates without going one by one to each page. It's going to be hard to replicate this with personal sites, but maybe we don't want to anymore, now that we see the downsides of the addictive feed. Perhaps a person whose page you would not specifically visit once in a while, is a person who you aren't really friends with. But I'm not sure, because the feed really is fun at times. Politics degrades it as much as anything.

[bluGill]

Things are more complex though. There are people I'm friends with on facebook that I wouldn't visit their web site. However facebook figures out when they have a kid, die, or otherwise some important event happens that I care about and makes sure I know about them. I care much more about random life events in my brother's life and so I see more of them (but I'd visit his web site) That is a valuable service that facebook has figured out.