[bermanoid]

Take the most popular person in high school and get him to design social software. It would suck. Bad.

What you've just described is Facebook, except that the "most popular person in high school" got cut out of the loop by the nerd smart enough to realize that the idea was good enough to be worth stealing.

And you're right. It does suck, in a million ways, reflecting our society at large rather well, overall. But it's also the most successful social network to date.

But in my opinion, at least, the main idea that the yacht club twins brought to the mix was actually the primary reason that it grew so easily: Facebook was, initially, at least, a social network for students at elite schools, let the rest of the University-of-CrappyPartySchool rabble diddle themselves on Myspace. Without that, I don't know that it ever would have taken off the way it did...