The Case to Facebook Holdouts

Farhad Manjoo, of Slate, tells us why Facebook is the new cell phone:

"For a long while—from about the late '80s to the late-middle '90s, Wall Street to Jerry Maguire—carrying a mobile phone seemed like a haughty affectation. But as more people got phones, they became more useful for everyone—and then one day enough people had cell phones that everyone began to assume that you did, too. "

Thus, the utility of the device began to outweigh its costs and complications. Also:

"In general, Facebook is a lubricant of social connections. With so many people on it, it's now the best, fastest place online to find and connect with a specific person—think of it as a worldwide directory, or a Wikipedia of people. As a result, people now expect to find you on Facebook—whether they're contacting you for a job or scouting you out for a genius grant."

His entire argument is nothing short of bulletproof. But if everyone should get on Facebook, the question of what happens to other social networking sites gets raised. For Facebook to reach its full potential, all other networks must go away, or at least become the "other" social network of users. A Microsoft-like control of the industry may be on the horizon, with MySpace playing the Apple. Too bad MySpace just sucks.