AOL Facebook

The first computer networks widely used outside of academia were things like CompuServe, Prodigy and then AOL. They were walled gardens: all you could access were the things they provided. With the wider spread of the Internet, they slowly granted increasing access to the Internet. Eventually everybody just used the Internet directly via an Internet Service Provider. AOL still exists, but it has fallen far from its glory days. The lesson I took was that walled gardens don’t work.

The success of Facebook belies that lesson. It seems clear that many people conduct a large portion of their Internet life entirely within Facebook. Facebook provides various different forms of communication—e-mail, chat, photo sharing, etc.&mdashbut it all exists only within Facebook. Sure, you can point offsite, but it’s hardly the main form of communication. Facebook is a newer and larger version of the walled gardens of yesterday.

I don’t myself find Facebook to be interesting or useful. I do have an account, but I only go to the Facebook site when I get some message from it. Typically it’s because somebody wrote something on my “wall;” why they didn’t just send me an e-mail message, I don’t know.

Widespread use of Facebook does not necessarily translate to revenue, but all the rumors these days are that they are making plenty of money. The introduction of games which people are willing to pay small amounts of money for was a brilliant idea in this regard—at least, I assume that Facebook gets a small cut.

So my lesson about walled gardens was wrong. Walled gardens works fine if they are compelling enough. That would be fine if Facebook takes its position as a platform seriously enough, if they work to provide neutral access to everybody. So far they do. Their history of trying different approaches is not too encouraging in this regard, but the economics support it. I just wish that I liked the site more.