Facebook For Ever Or What Comes After Facebook?

Yesterday Mark Zuckerberg and parts of his team announced the Facebook Email Service. It’s of course the obvious and the right step for Facebook right now. But i’d also say it’s the first step in the wrong direction out of one main reason and that is the fact that Facebook now slowly takes steps towards being compared to an everyday email service and by doing so they suddenly open up themselves for just that - comparison.When you speak to people about social media and Facebook there are two groupings. People who think that Facebook is the ONE. And then there’s the other gang that think Facebook can and will be replaced by another network or service.Who of these groups are right?Hell, I don’t know but I’ll tell you what I think:+500 million people seems like an awful lot of people to convince if you wanna make em use another service. But then again, Facebook has only managed to convince about 25% of the world internet users to actually get a Facebook account.Governments need a safe platformOne major problem with online messaging as we know it today is the fact that we still need a lot of extras in order for governments and other companies like banks and law firms to be able to send documents and perform transactions online. Facebook will never be this trusted partner where you end up performing this kind of business.We wan’t to control our own identitiesPersonally I’ve been owning my own domain for more than 10 years. It was obvious to me back then that if I were to have a strong identity online the solution was not to rely on another company. The history has shown that no matter how strong most of these companies disappear, change names or owners and it usually happens without a warning. Back in 98 for example I loved Six Degrees, then in 99 the suddenly disappeared with all my belongings...the digital ones that was.So what or who could really challenge Facebook?I believe the answer to that question is me and you.Meaning it’s all of us when we realize that we don’t wanna be a part of anyone else's business idea. We wan’t to build and own our presence online. ThisWhat we’ll see over the next years are hosting companies that focus on simplistic hosting targeted towardsWe wan’t to control our own identitiesPersonally I’ve been owning my own domain for more than 10 years. It was obvious to me back then that if I were to have a strong identity online the solution was not to rely on another company. The history has shown that no matter how strong most of these companies disappear, change names or owners and it usually happens without a warning. Back in 98 for example I loved Six Degrees, then in 99 the suddenly disappeared with all my belongings...the digital ones that was.What we need is this. (Hear up all you hosting companies)