I came to this post searching for an alternative facebook.
While I am obviously looking to replace my facebook networking activity with a better alternative, I disagree with the key points about what's good and bad about facebook.
First, your post was written a year ago and of course facebook along with other social networks have developed since then. Facebook now offers much better options to filter the connections in clusters on different levels of privacy.
You mention the "walled garden" aspect of facebook as a negative - in my view this is exactly facebook's strongest selling point, and no alternative will be competitive without a similar or stronger degree of privacy control. The Internet is not only a jungle, but one where the animals can choose whichever form and shape they like - it is nothing like the real world where persons are traceable and accountable and generally got only one identity each. You don't want strangers looking over your shoulder while you are interacting with people you trust. And importantly, unlike communication in real life, information searchable on the internet is likely to be read in contexts which the sender did not have in mind. Therefore privacy guarantees are alpha and omega for online social networking.
Open networks like public blogs and MySpace are so last year because most people have learned to interact socially on the Internet, they have learned from past experiences to avoid traps such as publicising info on the internet that can be googled and which they can never get off again. In their real lives they fence their garden and gate their communities to protect their privacy and shelter their circle of friends and family. They wouldn't join an online social networking site if they couldn't do the same online.
"Open" means "fragile" on the Internet and often has got unwanted offline repercussions down the track. Therefore social networking sites serving as frames for private communication has got to be walled gardens.
Where facebook lets its users down in my opinion, is in its lack of respect for its users's integrity. An example is the recent introduction of a major change in design, implemented overnight without warning. It's like implementing a major organisational change in a firm without asking the employees first. Moreover, the new design gives considerably less choice and control. Surveys made my facebook and others showed that more than 90 % of users are unsatisfied with the change, but they haven't pulled it back. That's disrespect.
To me, that's the drop... just waiting for the perfect alternative to show up, then the great challenge of trying to convince my network to migrate. Many facebook users I know are sick of it after the design change so maybe it's not that difficult right now.
Facebook