Facebook To Be an OS?

Three plus years ago Facebook launched as a university student only social networking site. It took off and in 2006 opened itself up to anyone with an email account. It still asks about high school and college affiliation, and some of the questions it asks in your social profile (are you looking to hook up?) come across as too youthful for me. The design seems very clean however and much less anarchic than MySpace.

They received 12.7 million in capital in 2005 and reportedly declined an offer of 750 million less than a year later. This would suggest that they have been aiming a bit higher all along and anticipate something in the billions range if in fact they ever sell.

They had already added many extended features like blogging and classifieds to the site and have an API for development known as Facebook Platform.

I belong to a few social networking sites but have not signed up for Facebook until now. I'm sure this is partly do to their student based recruitment and growth in their formative years, but is also partly due to their being eclipsed in growth by other sites that interested me. Their acquisition of Parakey, a "Web Operating System" company intrigues me. It is a rumor that Google made overtures to Parakey, which was developed by the original developers of Mozilla, Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt. Now that Facebook has them, will they become the next threat to the Microsoft OS domination? Does Google now have to look over its shoulder when it comes to community web based applications?

When I signed up for MySpace, I received many unsolicited bids for "friends". Since I signed up for Facebook, I have connected with two people, both of whom I have conversations with and share interests as well.

How many social networking sites do you belong to? I've just added a poll widget that I am playing with, located to the right. Please take the time to answer the question. It seems to hold true that comments are only made be a fraction of readers, and I'm hoping that doesn't hold true to polls as well.