Ads do seem to be the "default" business model on the web, which is understandable but a bit sad. App.net has an amazing potential around this if they build out

Ads do seem to be the "default" business model on the web, which is understandable but a bit sad. App.net has an amazing potential around this if they build out their API and developers can use it as infrastructure for inter-app communication. It'd be like an internet-wide "open" enterprise message bus. I'd very much like to see that, and would have liked to have seen Twitter go that route. They have outright rejected that though. Facebook on the other hand is in a more difficult position short-term, conceptually they're not well positioned for things like payments, etc. But it's hugely encouraging that Zuckerberg is so young and has such a long-term view on Facebook. I'm fairly sure they will figure it out and continue to grow Facebook into something even more amazing than it is now, if the bottom doesn't fall out from beneath them (read: their engineers leave in frustration or boredom).