[arctangent]

> on one smart platform

I'm hoping that the undoubtedly huge share price of Facebook after its IPO convinces investors to invest in other similar platforms.

Facebook will make a mint (for its founders and early investors, at least) but it can only benefit from the "first mover" advantage for so long.

I don't have anything against Facebook per se, but I'd like to see much more competition in this market. The social graph needs to move outside Facebook's walled garden and into the public domain.

[spullara]

The network and habit effects for this kind of online business are incredible. Everyone has been expecting Yahoo to die for ages now but it keeps on churning out ~$5B in revenue and ~$1B in profit year after year and that is only using email lock-in and legacy home page sets. My guess is that social graph lock-in is even more effective. BTW, it was hardly "first mover", Zuck was worried about being "Friendstered" from the very beginning, thus the slow roll out college by college and the monstrous investments in infrastructure. I very much doubt that the social graph (family and friends) is extractable from Facebook at this point.

[mbesto]

Isn't Myspace the first mover here?

[ryanbrunner]

Myspace was a bit of a copycat site of the really early guys like Sixdegrees and Friendster. It was certainly the first to get serious uptake though.