If you could prove to me that hundreds of millions of people interacted either any of those web sites (or even all of those websites) in a meaningful way on a r

If you could prove to me that hundreds of millions of people interacted either any of those web sites (or even all of those websites) in a meaningful way on a regular basis, I would buy your argument. Facebook has done a lot of redesigns, this is just a redesign that acts as a suitably rich metaphor for highlighting what the "new social web" is all about, or at least what part of the "new social web" is about at a level with which people can follow along.