What exactly can it do, then?

I'm just completely baffled by facebook. Can somebody explain the appeal of it to me? Now, myspace I always considered lamentable crap, but the appeal was fairly straightforward...it gave people an easy way to build their own websites (which tended to be wildly, err, creative) and a way to connect them to those of their friends. Myspace had a zany, fun, creative...howsoever crappy...appeal to it.

But facebook pages have this sedative-like uniformity that I just can't wrap my head around. Why are the kids going to this? The whole thing feels dull.

The facebook api--can anybody link to a good example of how this works? I'm not sure what kind of 'applications' you can make with stripped-down javascript-free html, but what do I know?

Well, what I know is this: The whole appeal for developers is mathematical. It's just a goldrush--and like any goldrush the profits GO TO THE FIRST ONES WHO ARRIVE. The demand/supply curve is all on the demand side because there are so few facebook "apps" at the moment. Once saturation hits, the old web with its old freedoms will be the only real player again.