The Economist predicts that in the future, all the social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook will be compatible with one another.

Though bigger networks are "open" toward independent programmers who can write new software, they are not open toward sharing users' information, since their number of page visits would decrease. This forces users to join several separate social networks to interact with different friends.

Many believe that in the future, there will no longer be one specific site to be social, much like how instant messaging evolved. Before, only AIM users could chat with other AIM users, but now someone on AIM can chat with someone on MSN.

"[Social networks] will be like air," Charlene Li at Forrester Research, a consultancy says. "They will be anywhere and everywhere we need and want them to be." For instance, the "news feeds" from Facebook could go directly to the user's e-mail box, RSS reader, or instant messenger, instead of logging on to the site.

This could mean receiving updates from any news source, even if the user only has an account at one social network. Sharing news with friends would be easier and more immediate.

The Economist points out that social network sites will not generate a lot of revenue but will nevertheless "become a ubiquitous feature of online life"  because of their "enormous utility." They create a "thriving ecosystem of small programs ... to enable friends to interact via games, greetings, video clips and so on."

Source: The Economist (picture)