Who owns identity on the internet?

Facebook is making a play for the title of gatekeeper-in-chief.

As with many things Facebook, business ignores the social net at its own peril.

Farhad Manjoo offers a clear explanation of how the new "like" buttons are supposed to "help the social network remake everything online...No other company will have anything like Facebook's towering database of human intentions and desires--not even Google."

He's generally excited about it, and even he says, "Facebook is co-opting the rest of the Web."

But Dave Winer says of the master plan, "it won't work, it can't, they're up against forces that are inexorable."