The launch of Google’s App Engine, which allows developers to build a Web application and then host it on Google’s existing infrastructure, is a watershed moment in the software-development industry. The days of building and hosting your own servers, except for specialized applications, are officially over. This is good news. And App Engine will give everyone, including Amazon, a nice scare, which means that these companies will be forced to take a hard look at what they offer today, and what they need to do to improve it.

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As Facebook enjoys its moment in the sun, we should take a moment to step back and look at the history of computers and social communication. Some historical perspective is in order, both to assess the real value of social networks as businesses and to anticipate how they are likely to evolve in the future. I’ve been using the Internet since 1988, and have been using various commercial online services such as CompuServe, Prodigy and GEnie since I had my first computer. A lot of things that could be described as social networks have come and gone in that time.

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