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One of the most interesting things to come out of a growing distaste for Facebook is Diaspora . If you haven't heard about it or are just a little aware of it, here's the skinny.

Four computer science students have proposed building something akin to a distributed Facebook. People would build their own nodes and have, essentially, inter-connected social networks where you could (better?) control your privacy.

Another important thing: Diaspora doesn't exist yet. The students have raised about $100,000 towards starting the project, but it isn't even something you can check out in alpha yet. Even without anything tangible some folks, like Download Squad, are saying that Diaspora could take out Facebook:

1) The Diaspora team grows, possibly adding someone who can write proper English as well. 2) By the end of the summer, they put out an initial version. 3) That version gets grilled and tested. 4) They iterate, fix, release, fix, release. 5) Within a year, we get something that is actually usable. 6) "Mini-Facebooks" start popping up all over the place, with communities setting up their own servers that can then talk to each other. It's like P2P but for social networking. Of course, I cannot guarantee Diaspora will be an incredible success. Nobody can. However, I can tell you that I would be very surprised if nothing came of it in the end.
link: Why Diaspora will win

Before you go waving this off as crazy talk, I'll remind you of two online giants from the not-too-distant-past: AOL and Compuserv. Those two companies had it all , then cheaper ISPs started to pop up and this unknown "idea" was born: HTTP. Hey, let's make a way to link documents on the internet together. Once the web was born, AOL and Compuserv were no longer arbiters of content in the online sphere. Then POP3/SMTP came into mass use and they couldn't even claim to have the email market.

Rhut Rho.

I'm not saying Facebook is doomed or that Diaspora is the answer, but I think it's worth considering that Facebook (and Twitter for that matter) are based on the idea that their service is the best and that people won't want to switch.

We can see how well that worked out for AOL and Compuserv.

It could be an interesting summer.