Could Open Source Render Facebook the Next AOL?

joabj writes "Now that Facebook has amassed more than 500 million users, a growing number of open source social networking developers are wondering if Facebook's photo sharing, status updates and other features wouldn't work better as Internet-wide standardized services. At the OSCON conference last week, the head of Identi.ca, an open source Twitter-like microblogging service, likened today's social networking services to the enormously proprietary online services of the early 1990s, like AOL or Prodigy. He suggested that just like SMTP and Sendmail standardized what were previously propriety e-mail services, so too could open source social networking stacks, like OStatus, render walled garden services like Facebook obsolete."

Comments

Re:Great, open source

[kaiser423]

Huh. Are you on some irc channel of basement dwellers that got caught in a net-split back in the 90's and got stuck in that time period?

You'd make a great find for some anthropologists.

Re:Farmville!

[OzPeter]

Unless they can get Farmville ported to an open platform most facebook users will never leave no matter hope open or technically superior an alternative is.

But Farmville *is* an open platform. Anyone can go there and try their hand at farming!