A lot of people rolled their eyes when Mark proclaimed that Facebook's mission was to make the world a more open place. But take a look through Facebook's API. I've found it more valuable than nearly anything else out there when it comes to leveraging real identities for your application. If you realize the potential in that existing community, there's so much that can be done. As more and more applications extend upon Facebook's platform, Facebook is accomplishing just what Mark claimed.
Interesting. If Mark sold to Yahoo, maybe none of this would have happened. By releasing the API, facebook also de-monopolizes its information. This perhaps lowers FB's pricetag per user. And perhaps Mark knows this.
One thing that's not clear to me is if the internet communities still work if you take away some of the inherent anonymity that's associated with someone's online persona.
In the extreme case, where every online community is tied to facebook, imagine being able to click a user name and find out "real' information about a person and his friends. It might make people less willing to post.
