Normally I'd agree with you. In Facebook's case, I'll make the argument that Facebook's only trying to do a single thing, but that single thing is so ambitious

Normally I'd agree with you. In Facebook's case, I'll make the argument that Facebook's only trying to do a single thing, but that single thing is so ambitious that they're justified in taking this move. The goal of Facebook is to let people make a profile of themselves online and keep in touch with friends. That's a widespread, two-pronged goal. Way back before the last two redesigns, Facebook focused a lot on the profile part of the equation. That's when they had the two-column approach with no theming whatsoever. Then they added apps and profiles became overspammed, and they made the slow switch over to the feed system. In the last few months, they've been adding public profile features, without sacrificing their original intent whatsoever. That's impressive. It means that my family can maintain its closed Facebook connections, but my public-minded friends can go public and not have to worry about managing other web sites. Furthermore, the options are granular, meaning you can make parts of you public and keep other parts private. I refuse to friend family members, but I can give them public photo links so they can still be involved in my goings-on. It's a terrific solution. I have to wonder if all of the "Facebook=Twitter" critics use Facebook at all, because it's the most deluded thing I've heard. People are fucking mental if they think Facebook's trying to supplant Twitter. It's taking some pages out of their book, absolutely, but if you can mimic a site without removing any functionality then you're doing something good. Now, my Facebook feed isn't a bunch of 140-character updates. People post links and photos and videos and they all show up. Any post can spark a conversation. Whereas on Twitter I post something into a void, on Facebook friends comment on my status updates. Conversations begin. Furthermore, because Facebook treats a user's wall like a continuous stream, if I post something to a friend's wall, all our friends see it. I've actually had friends meet up and become friends through talking on a post on my wall, which is one of those things where you can't help but think "Wow, this is really cool". Facebook won't beat Twitter where Twitter reigns supreme. But they'll add Twitter-like features and make their users happier, and less likely to switch over to using other services.