Bobbie Johnson at
The Guardian draws on comments from Facebook's Zuckerberg and MySpace's
Chris DeWolfe to give an idea of the rival companies' audacious plans for the future: "MySpace chief executive Chris DeWolfe said that he was focused on
beating the economic downturn, initially through expanding its
advertising programme and also through the new MySpace Music site,
which lets surfers buy and download tracks online. But he also
intimated that the social network could have an even bigger target in
its sights – Apple, the company behind the massively successful iPod.
Asked whether the company would consider making its own MP3 player to
build on its reputation in online music, DeWolfe replied cryptically
that 'it's possible'."

"Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, said that he was not as
interested in raking in profits as his competitors – but would instead
concentrate on continuing to expand the website."

Dean Takahashi's live blog
of Zuckerberg's address takes the time to note that he wore
tennis shoes this year (as opposed to last year's sandals). What will
the pundits make of that, we wonder?

Microsoft & Yahoo ain't gonna happen
Staying
with Web 2.0, pity Jerry Yang, CEO of Yahoo, who is getting a
rollicking across the board for being the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong
time, following this week's news that Google had pulled out of a proposed advertising deal with Yahoo and subsequent quashing of speculation that Microsoft would step in with an offer.

Covering Yang's Web 2.0 presentation, Michael Arrington called Yahoo 'poor, alone and sad' and says Yang must go: "What Yahoo needs is a new CEO. They need their Barack Obama
- someone to make everyone believe that a true leader is at the helm,
ready to fight. Someone with a believable plan. Someone who can inspire
Yahoo, and Yahoo users, to believe that Yahoo can once again become a
force on the Internet."

Om Malik struggles to see a happy ending: "Yahoo has been on a downward spiral, with a declining stock price,
plummeting morale in its troops and so far, no clear stratagem for
digging out of its listlessness. Yahoo’s next likely move – buying AOL
– will be like trying to fix a cut in the carotid with a Band-Aid."

Kara Swisher calls Yang the internet's human pinata
but adds a shot of clear-sighted objectivity on the overall problems
ailing Yahoo: "There are very real questions about whether Yang has the
right talent
and temperament for the job at hand, as much as he clearly loves the
company he co-founded. … Nonetheless, it is simply lazy to just call
for Yang’s ouster as the
panacea for what ails the company. It’s a feel-good suggestion mixed
with a creepy mob mentality that offers no clear path to improvement."

Change.gov – Obama starts as he means to go on
Just
hours after their contender won the US presidential elections, the team
behind Barack Obama launched Change.gov, proving once again that his
team knows all the right ways to tap the zeitgeist of the social media
generation.

Rick Turoczy at ReadWriteWeb sums up
: "In short, Obama has begun crowdsourcing the political agenda. And
when it comes right down to it, isn't that what democracy is supposed
to be about anyway? A government of the people, by the people, for the
people?

"A few weeks ago when Gartner hypothesized
that 'social networks will complement, and may replace, some government
functions', it seemed almost laughable. But today, in the wake of what
has occurred this week, it seems all the more accurate and attainable."

Adam Ostrow at Mashable is full of praise for Obama's people striking while the iron is hot: "For the moment, Change.gov is a pretty simple site that is more or less
a continuation of the Obama campaign, but it’s encouraging to see the
President-elect moving quickly to keep his supporters as engaged after
victory as they were during it."

Jeremiah Owyang provides a rundown of the site features, adding: "I certainly hope the Obama administration applies for next year’s
[Forrester] Groundswell awards , they’d be a fantastic case study of how
institutions are embracing social technologies to connect with people.
It’s really hard for anyone to be a nay-sayers about the adoption of
these tools now, if the big ol’ government can start to connect with
people, corporations can too."

FriendFeed adds maps
MG Siegler at VentureBeat was the first to notice that FriendFeed's sneaked in a new maps feature under the radar, something he thinks is: "A subtle, yet nice addition to the service and one that should help
move the adoption of location-based services forward a little bit more."

Stan Schroeder at Mashable already thinks the feature needs tweaking: "The feature is nice, but is it relevant? Louis Gray
asks in a recent update: 'The map shows I posted from Sunnyvale, but
it’s not relevant to the post. Hey FF, how do I pull that map?' In
certain situations, these maps are just going to show the same location
- work or home – over and over again, so being able to hide the maps
might be a good idea."

–Basheera Khan