You have some very interesting ideas. Yes, open hooks for iLife apps would be greatly appreciated. In fact I believe Apple should provide an easy to use, official plug-in framework for it’s apps (Safari, Mail, iLife apps, iWork apps etc). It already does for Aperture, IIRC. It would be a good idea for Apple to invest more in the scripting-bridge to ruby/python they provide in Leopard for that purpose (and, oh, please let Applescript die already!)

I don’t see this as an either/or proposition though. I mean, sure open access to Blogger, Wordpress et al from Apple apps would be greatly appreciated. However, Apple is also in a position to create Web 2.0 applications far beyond what a simple plugin or third-party integration is able to provide (stylish, too, if we are to judge from the Wiki application included in Leopard Server).

I thought I read somewhere that they’ll let any developer have access to the iLife media browser. So instead of Apple putting together a branded Flickr competitor, I’d rather some developer just make Flickr hook into the Media Browser somehow.

Same goes for blogging. Apple shouldn’t compete with WordPress or Blogger. Instead, they should develop an open-enough O.S. to allow a third-party to develop desktop clients for WordPress or Blogger that have the feel of a Mac app.

I mean — most of us already have our social networks already set up. Instead of adding a new one to the mix, Apple should make it as easy as possible for third-party developers to hook the O.S. into those networks.

With that being said, .Mac’s new “Back to My Mac” feature is pretty damn cool, and might be worth the price of admission.

.Mac costs money. Bandwidth costs money. Storage costs money. Features costs money. Apple will not create a service unless it can profit from it. I would not want them to.

I think you overestimate the operating costs. As a motivator for switching to the Mac, a .Mac 2.0 could more than pay for itself. Think of it as part of their advertising budget. Apple has lots of room to grow market share-wise.

Or, they could offer it for free on purchase of some of their products (a new Mac, OS X etc) until the next revision of the product comes along. In this way, it could be thought as a sort of a rebate. Surely, a $100/year rebate is not that much, if you consider that their margins allowed them to drop $200 off of the iPhone price.

Lastly, a paid “Pro” .Mac offering could also cover the operating costs. There are a lot of profitable online services with a dual free/paid model (6 Apart, 36 Signals, SnugMug, etc).

Online communities cost money - Generally large communities are MONEY LOSERS. Look at AOL. Look at FaceBook. Blogger makes no money. Skype is a huge money loser for eBay.

Yes, but you don’t acknowledge how these examples differ from a hypothetical Apple online community. As I wrote in my previous comment, unlike Facebook, Blogger et al, Apple actually makes and sells tangible products. Products that can benefit and gain usefulness (and, thus, market share) by integrating with a vibrant set of online tools (and community).

Apple does not even have to bear the costs on its own. They could cooperate with Google or Yahoo! and re-brand or adapt their offerings under an Apple umbrella.

I like .Mac as it is. It’s worth the price.

Yes, but how many other people agree to this? .Mac is the most complained about Apple product (excluding the Finder).

Apple generally does not sell products or services for a loss. Even the iTunes Music Store makes a profit or at least breaks even.

.Mac costs money. Bandwidth costs money. Storage costs money. Features costs money. Apple will not create a service unless it can profit from it. I would not want them to.

Online communities cost money - Generally large communities are MONEY LOSERS. Look at AOL. Look at FaceBook. Blogger makes no money. Skype is a huge money loser for eBay.

I like .Mac as it is. It’s worth the price. If other services offer more for less - good for them. Take advantage of them until they crack and go broke. Good luck to you. You have my permission to go use those services.

If you want something free from Apple, that will cause it to lose money - then you won’t get it. I would vote against it. Let someone else go broke.

An Apple stockholder - and damn proud of it.

That’s not an accident. It’s very much by design. It’s why they’re not going to dip their toes into social networking until either they figure out how to make it pay for itself (at the very least), or until somebody else does.

I imagine that what they’ll do is wait for Google to snap someone up, then integrate that as they’ve integrated YouTube. If there’s a company on Earth that knows how to make money from a vastly distributed, bandwidth-intensive service, together with the server cloud to make it really purr, it’s Google. And they already have a good working relationship with Apple.

While the part about the “stable or proven revenue stream” is probably be true for most of the current efforts, Apple’s case is different.

See, unlike Google, Facebook or Flickr, Apple is a company that already builds and sells actual products (Macs, iPhones, iPods and software).

A successful Apple range of Web 2.0 services, integrated to OS X, iLife apps and their consumer electronics offerings can increase the usefulness and value of the company’s products.

I already gave an example of how .Mac can serve as an incentive for people to buy Apple products (e.g. by making it free for the buyers of the latest OS X).

Sort of how they use ITMS to sell more iPods (actually, according to John Gruber, ITMS is quite profitable on it’s own).

That said, I’m not surprised that Apple hasn’t attempted a Flikr or Facebook themselves. Looking at the current attempts, there are two things that are consistently true: They require insane bandwidth and server support ($$$), and they have no stable or proven revenue stream. Facebook is still living on VC capital, and that’s not a good place to be. I expect .Mac to continue to get better at integrating with other services (like YouTube) so that other companies get to worry about these things. If they haven’t integrated in the social sites yet, there are probably sound reasons and they probably boil down to either technical hurdles (MySpace.com’s hideous ca. 1996 HTML) or financial hurdles.

I really can’t blame them for watching and waiting. Besides, there are lots and lots of dead web sites out there. GeoCities, anyone?

I don’t think however that Apple stands a chance against Google in the web area.