You might be sick of hearing this from me, but strongly believe that Facebook is the next Google. It took me a while to “get religion,” but now I have it. Just as Google brought a simple way to search the web, my observation is that Facebook is poised to do the same for organizing and - this is key - centralizing social content

Google will continue to dominate “pull.” But Facebook will aggregate content, make it social and rule “push.” Using our social circle it will surface content that we care about just when we want it - and allow us to comment on it all. As more people use Facebook to connect, share and create, a network effect takes over - and the system get even smarter.

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@luebue comments:

Steve, as you know I am very often with you in your predictions and analysis - but here I feel you might be wrong. First: as the web is hiding more and more within apps (not only on the iPhone, I am sure this is just the beginning) and become more and more embedded in services, I think there will be no room for a centralization anymore. And second: FB is a silo. And silos are very attractive on the short run, but not on the long run. See AOL.

I see the point that FB is - now! - the operating system for our social lives. But I am sure it will not be for ever. And between playing farmville and organizing meetings with friends on one hand - and consuming news and other stuff on the other, there will be a difference for a long time.

The splinternet thing is much more convincing for me.

pretty interesting discussion, he? I think,  Wolfgang is theoretically right BUT we are lazy people. And lazy people not always go with the best but the most comfortable solution. For example, to set-up and manage and check a perfectly working google reader/twitter, etc. is quite cumbersome. It is so much easier to friend up or fan the page of my favorite blogs and have it directly delivered to the one stream I always check, and that one is definitely on facebook (mobile, too)

So it all depends on us and our laziness is key.