I wouldn't use an alternative simply because all my "friends" are on Facebook. I don't want to run two social network accounts. What you need in order to allo

I wouldn't use an alternative simply because all my "friends" are on Facebook. I don't want to run two social network accounts. What you need in order to allow "competition" is to have some form of interoperability. E.g. Twitter API allows lots of companies to write Twitter apps. (Of course, now Twitter is trying to take control of all that.) E.g. how in Apple's iChat you can use AOL Instant Messanger, Jabber, etc. and talk to users of iChat or those other services. (I use Adium to put all my IMing in one place, and that includes Facebook connectivity.) So, if Altly can scrape Facebook so that by being an Altly user I can have both Altly and Facebook friends in one interface, then I might consider using it. (Still has to have a better interface and execution.)