Shortly after their launch in 2004, they copied the Myspace "Comments" section, a place where friends could leave public posts. Then they added the ability to upload photos, bringing the functionality of photo-sharing sites like Flickr and Photobucket to Facebook. Next came a "Share on Facebook" button was copy of Digg and del.icio.us."

Then, came along Facebook Chat - the social network's version of AOL Instant Messenger, along with Facebook Connect, a feature that allowed users to bring their Facebook identities with them as they browsed the web. Connect followed a similar Myspace service, "Data Availability," and that competes directly with FriendFeed, Plaxo Pulse and the more recently launched Iminta.

In 2009 "Like" button, which borrowed heavily from FriendFeed's own.

Facebook has now mimicked Quora, Foursquare, and Twitter with Facebook Questions, Facebook Places, and Subscribe.

At least AOL made its bones by offering heavily moderated versions of what had been standard fare on dial-up BBS and USENET for years. It had its glory days and now it's a shadow of its former self. The same will likely happen to Facebook. The bigger and the more corporate it becomes the less agile and responsive it will be to its users. "Nextbook" will happen and Facebook will be relegated to the boneyard along with AOL, Compuserve­, Earthlink, Tripod, Mindspring­, MySpace, etc.