The Aiwa Facebook: £149 at Currys

Nice Facebook analogy from Iain Tait: Facebook is an all-in-one stereo system - fine for beginners but ultimately a bit limiting and of mediocre quality (web 2.0 is separates, natch). See also Wired's article Slap In The Facebook.

This was also one of the recurring themes at BarCamp Brighton, particularly with such a strong Microformats and semantic web flavour pervading the whole weekend. Lots of bold words about Facebook's inevitable (albeit it far-off) demise.

Although in principle I agree, I thought this was a little strong - I'm still rather ambivalent about it all. Facebook's certainly a useful tool and it's great to see so many people contributing to the web, sharing media and so on. I just regret that there's this great big mainstream love affair with a walled garden concept I hoped the web had outgrown.

Of course, the interesting question is how those of us nearer the front of the curve can convince our less geeky friends that separates are better, without sounding like horrible snobs. Believe me, I've tried, and believe me, I sounded like a horrible snob.