How Facebook could crush MySpace, Yahoo! and Google

The opposing view to the earlier one which I had neglected to credit to Jason Kottke. You can indeed sit in one place and do many things -- like third-party Lending Club -- but you also get updated as to what friends are doing.

Sure, the other portals incorporate Gmail and BBC headlines and YouTube searches and podcast directories. By adding a social context to all of this content, however, Facebook would immediately trump its main competition. With Facebook's News Feed, it's elementary to see when your friends sign up for a new product or service. That means the best add-ons become viral instantly...

Kottke argues, though, that like AOL, Facebook closes off public browsing and participation (yes, its reason for its growth) and that limits how much of a success it can be in the Wild Web. It personally makes sense for me if the friend activity update functionality (news, links, events, products, services, ...) would just fit as a fancier looking feed in my reader. They need to widget parts of it so it can fit into other platforms.