Make any analogy you want and the fact remains, as DM pointed out, Facebook is leading the industry with its vision and execution. The rest of the guys are scrambling to catch up.

Who would you rather have leading us into the future? It is good, as DM mentions to have multiple alternatives(leaders). With the life example MZ has set, the notion that Facebook does not want what’s best for the consumer just doesn’t make sense. Think about it this way, if you were facebook and thought you could save the world, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to make that happen? As with their platform policy.

There is something very powerful about using a standard system. What would happen if there were 4, not 1 way of voting in elections? It would be much harder to organize, communicate, and make decisions.

We all know how this one ended:-)

P@

in this case, i’d have to say it’s Facebook that’s been pushing the technical standard for “train tracks”, and it’s Google & others who are coming to the party johnny-come-lately.

you may argue that FOAF, XFN, & OpenID have been around for while, but it’s exactly Facebook’s implementation (and perhaps LiveJournal before them) that has made some modified form of these features & functionality available to a wide audience.

while i have no doubt that a world of standards would suit everyone better, it’s also true that it strikes me as unlikely that Facebook will go quietly into that night after having spent 3 years building our a very useful & innovative social networking system & application platform (that many others are now copying).

it’s of course nice to think that Facebook & others would come around to an open standards view of the world, but that would likely put more pressure on their already-challenged view of monetizing their [currently free] service. while i don’t particularly like that they appear to talk nice about standards, i won’t disagree that it’s not really what they’re thinking.

on the other hand, it IS appropriate for any company to defend their position in the market, and i have no problem with that. if others compete better — with or without open standards — that’s great too, it will force FB & others to respond.

in fact, i would argue that it’s actually BETTER for the ecosystem to have at least 2 alternatives; one based on the standards you/others propose, and another not. that still provides plenty of market for both options to experiment & offer benefit to the community… and isn’t that better for them anyway?

Esperanto might have been a great standard had everyone jumped in. then again, it probably didn’t offer a lot of innovation along with the standardization. maybe that’s really what we need — not just standardization, but innovation as well. both can be useful.

whether “Russian standard gauge” trains are an innovation or an anachronism, certainly time will tell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_gauge#Russian_Broad_Gauge