IT’S LIKE THE KID ON THE PLAYGROUND that everybody wants to be like. Facebook not only has a loyal following, it has a slew of copycats. And these copycatters are showing Facebook the way, unknowingly helping it grow and setting the tone for the online playgrounds that are social networks and shaping Facebook into a mature, intelligent and significant piece of technology.

New social networks are emerging like a hailstorm pounding on us from the Internet clouds above. Inevitably these infant networks are not holding suit to Facebook forcing them to recede unnoticed into the night, but not without leaving their stench for the Facebook dogs to pick up. Driving these hopeful many is the notion of innovative new features to attract users. Twitter integration, Mobil tracking, powerful personal publishing, video orgies and media connectivity to name a few are the basis of these hopefuls whose names disappear but ideas live on.

Operating happily with over 41 million users Facebook is able to sit back and watch the ideas unfold online. The current trend is to start a social network. Get an innovative idea, find a software engineer and some venture capital and get to work. It worked great for Facebook, but it is stops there. The trend has now switched gears to all of the above plus failure and the adoption of your idea by Facebook. Continuing on this path Facebook will develop more and more useful, feature rich applications and its user count will continue to grow, making it even more impossible for the success of a young imitator to find its place in the playground.

While Facebook unveils newly adopted features advertisers will be given new opportunities to reach their audience. Already Facebook’s stunning mobile interface has attracted innovative advertising tactics on mobile devices and this trend will continue to grow as features continue to emerge. Similar to the phenomena happening with free web applications, advertisers will be required to be nimble and innovative as they experiment and struggle to understand how to successfully deploy a message on Facebook.