Oh my god they're selling publicly available data the world is ending.

Oh, and in case you couldn't tell, I was being sarcastic.

I really hate how social networking and social media has been handled. Here are big communal islands in the internet - places where you can find people from college, high school, the military, places where you can meet new friends, places to exchange enthusiasm and activity - and the entire official attitude towards it is OOH GIGANTIC MARKETING OPPORTUNITY LET'S SPOUT BUZZWORDS ABOUT IT NOW. It's like if you went to the park because the sun was out and you were going to see your friends and walk your dog maybe, and instead there were billboards and sales extrovert assholes everywhere. It seems so dishearteningly typical of this world and America in particular.

I think the key is to insure that the new social networking site makes it easier to be vapid to more people than ever. Sites like this, where you have to use complete sentences, are SO 20th century. Now the standard is 140 characters! I think that's too complex. I mean, something just really stupid. Because that's the trajectory, from LJ where people expect reasonably robust posts, to MySpace and the horrors of their poorly implemented CSS, to Facebook's wall where updates are frequent but irrelevant to Twitter where irrelevance is literally a function of the system! If you can think of a way to lower the bar, your site will win.

Communicating solely through mood icons of some sort might do it. Especially if they're irreverent or even just plain offensive. Preferably Flash-based, maybe. Presented in, as you say, horrible CSS.

You guys scare me.

Wonder if we can find some venture capitalist out there willing to hear a pitch ... .

Hmm. Maaaaaaybe...

Twitter CAN be used well. It's usually not, but it CAN be.