Social networks are, simply, networks for socializing. A helpful utility to keep in touch with friends on your own time and on their own time. No need to be in the same room at the same time, on the phone at the same time, etc. Of course, everyone knows this. We all use them all the time. And I do mean “them.” As in, a lot of them. Facebook. LinkedIn. MySpace. Bebo. Flixster. Gather. Last.fm. Plaxo. Twitter. Rock.com…and new ones are built every day.

I wish there one.

I guess Facebook is still my first check point. I wonder if it will stay that way.

Great article by Peter Whoriskey in the Washington Post discussing Google’s Friend Connect and Facebook’s decision to forbid its members from signing in to websites using this new service from Google, effectively creating yet another confined and specific group of friends, aka another “walled garden.” Yikes. I can’t deal with another subset of friends.

I know it’s about money and keeping an audience but I think if sites like Facebook stop being open platforms then we’ll take our socializing elsewhere. I prefer a public park to a walled garden.