Google is nearly impossible to replicate where as social networks is and will always be a trend. Also people tend to use more than one of these social networks.
PG pondered once in one of his essays, if I remember correctly, that naturally myspace or any other current social network will not be the only one in the years to come.
That Google maintains its audience despite zero lock in is a testament to just how strong their search product is. I don't see Facebook opening up all of the details of their network.
Google is nearly impossible to replicate where as social networks is and will always be a trend. Also people tend to use more than one of these social networks.
PG pondered once in one of his essays, if I remember correctly, that naturally myspace or any other current social network will not be the only one in the years to come.
update: "So in a hundred years the only social networking sites will be the Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and Del.icio.us? Not likely." http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html
The internet population is already 1 billion. Thats plenty of people and opportunities.
Microsoft and Google with all that money should just buy all the startups they can and kill Facebook for good...
Or we should just expect the new "Norton" to invent the NEW anti-"socialnetwork"/virus