That’s an excellent point. Especially if FB does discount marketing through their channel. The problem is valuation and potential competition via market segmentaion. 20 billion dollars? Come on. That is grossly over valued for a company that won’t release it’s books. Also, they’re going to have lots of small and large compeditors springing up all over the place. I see private social networking as the wave of the future.
Its already in place in Asia. And thats the biggest and fastest growing market. Numerous social net sites - mostly bidness related. But all started as a "network" site.
But, FB, like Starbucks, has name recognition going for it. Thats a powerful draw. So I see it continuing with a move to "value-added" revenue generation. I think the purely social network side will continue.
p.s. - I don't FB, myspace, twitter, linked-in, etc.
Hell, I'm in a country that has more cell-phones than people by about 2x's and I don't even use one of those...lol.