The real problem is that even facebook seems aol-esque from he onset. It was not technologically revolutionary. Its niche was the cachet conjured from the mar

The real problem is that even facebook seems aol-esque from he onset. It was not technologically revolutionary. Its niche was the cachet conjured from the marketing strategy (harvard -> ivy league schools -> colleges in general -> students in general -> public). Given that facebook has reached critical mass, its hard to imagine a solution that is incrementally better than facebook that could achieve critical mass. Yes there was myspace / whatever other social networking sites, but the problem there was that none of them reached critical mass. The only way you could build a better social network is if you really re-thought the problem. Thinking about stuff like privacy controls and apps is taking a facebook-like perspective on the matter, and you won't get anywhere. You need to think about how a 21st century platform would behave. Define your niche. And unless you plan on setting up a 501c3, you need to think about how this could be monetized. Ads? Now it would really be slick if you could find a better way of executing ads -- somehow 5 ads per page doesn't really appeal to me