Social Networking and the Self

A guy asked me on the airplane what I think of Facebook's future prospects. I told him that, while I think Facebook will still be around, it will lose a lot of viability and relevance in the future—possibly within five years, definitely within ten years.

I've held that opinion for a while, but as I was talking with this guy, I managed to get a sharper insight as to why I think this. But for me to properly explain that insight, first I need to provide a short explanation of something that (initially) seems totally unrelated:

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See also "The Social Graph is Neither", a very interesting blog entry from the creator of Pinboard that makes some similar points, but also some very different ones, in a much more eloquent fashion than me.