Sarah Lacy once eloquently argued that Facebook has become the Internet’s “ultimate walled garden” giving users the control to decide what they want and don’t want in their “personal gardens.” She’s right. Facebook is rapidly becoming the way people experience the Web.

But key to this “walled garden” strategy is dominating the way people create, consume, share, comment on, and curate content. Pinterest is the new category king of curation, and Facebook needs to own it. Because controlling content and all of the activities around it is key to driving user engagement and monetizing user data, two things Facebook must do to keep winning.

Source is Christopher Lochhead, Why Facebook Should Buy Pinterest Next.

Professor friend of mine was telling me that for many of his undergrads, Facebook *is* the Internet. That's where they get their email, their news, chat with friends -- everything. And he said this three years ago. I think it's safe to say this trend has likely only increased...

Facebook executives believe they are building a better Internet.

An Internet where everyone knows who you are so your actions have accountability.

An Internet where you can never get away from your friends.

An Internet that delivers content to you instead of your having to find it yourself.

A better Internet is safer, faster, more secure.

And filled with people liking things and sharing them with each other.

Makes me wonder why people rebel against such an improvement.

Indeed, who wants the blighted slum shantytowns of the pre-Facebook Internet when the bright, safe, sanitary metropolis of the Facebook Likernet awaits?

http://memesteading.com/2010/04/24/welcome-to-the-facebook-likernet-like-er-or-not/

Thanks, Gordon, I had not seen that before.

"Instead of the Internet's web of links, the Likernet offers a social graph of likes."

The open Web is dying, little by little, and it's hard to stop the forces that are doing the killing.