Cory Doctorow, being a big fan of the Internet, is not a big fan of web services that try to turn themselves into walled gardens. Here he has a go at Facebook. I must admit that I rather like his idea that the bigger a social networking system gets, the more likely it is that people on it are going to start dropping off because folks that they don’t want to network with start popping up there. Of course this is just another driving factor in the creation of Belief Circles, but unless some clever web developer can manage to create a system that keeps all of its users on board while allowing them to create and join their own circles it does put a limit on the monopolistic ambitions of such folks.

Meanwhile, I’m off to read some danah boyd (thanks for the tip, Cory; also Jonathan for pointing me to Cory’s article in the first place).