Once again, the hype about a Facebook killer transcends the actual topic at hand: people don’t care about Facebook. They care about friends, photos, and fun shit. (See this article on Slate.)

Guess what? Facebook won’t last forever. Neither will Google. Neither will Übarconnekt (coming soon in 2012). Facebook needs funds to continue, so it’ll try to attract more advertisers. Google already has a vast advertiser network, and most people interact with it on a daily basis. However, we’ve (hopefully) learned something from the likes of Yahoo!—über-portals that combine everything into a clutterful asplosíon just don’t work in the realm of organized online being.

This is the pitfall Facebook is headed towards, if it doesn’t reconcile the lack of some key user controls and the threat of irrelevance. Meanwhile, Google has the possibility to create a network even more precise than what it can conjure up now. It’s a lot easier to target ads when you tell the advertiser your deepest wants and needs. With the launch of Google Profiles, you can manage your online reputation much easier than undergoing intensive search engine optimization. Whether you give your personal information and links to Facebook or Google is up to how publicly identifiable you want to be. Will an open network defeat a closed network? Does privacy matter? Do people care anymore? Facebook and Google can both learn something from each other. Unless MySpace somehow gets its act together first.

I’m still holding out for the massive open source collaboration that strips out uselessness, where the most interesting and relevant rise to the top, and cows graze happily against a setting sun in the fields of a distant, butter-churning land of peace. Until then, I’m bracing for A(H1N1) flu.