This article has a lot of great points about private vs. open, but one I disagree with is "First, it's hard, if not impossible, to monetize private communication."

The obvious example that comes to mind here is Gmail. People still click on the targeted keyword ads next to their email, and I haven't seen that Gmail has started making anyone's email public yet.

That billion dollars Facebook made last year was mostly from those personalized display ads, which can easily target a person based on the ad profile of them facebook builds without anyone (read: the outside world) ever seeing their name/employer/statuses/etc. I can't imagine that the revenue from selling the status stream to Google for some multiple of $15 million comes close to the billion they're making from display ads, or the PR mess they've gotten themselves in.