Your comment takes me back to AOL days of “keywords”. Then I realized that’s essentially what Facebook (and co) is: modern-day AOL.

The similarities are striking:

- Keywords instead of URLs? Check.

- Chat within the app? Check.

- Standalone chat client? Check.

- Marketplace? Check.

- Advertising? Check.

- News aggregation? Check.

The only real difference is Facebook doesn’t offer an internet service, and doesn’t charge a subscription fee (and ok, doesn’t send out floppy disks or CDs).

If it wasn’t so sad it would be comical how much engineering effort is wasted on reinventing the same things.