“What an irony! For what is this much-trumpeted social networking but an escape back into that world of the closed online service of 15 or 20 years ago?”

I’d pay (a small sum) to listen to a conversation between you and him about identity ownership and social software.

Many of my online friendships have moved offline when they have been with people who live in this country. While this has also applied to international friendships in some cases, that does not mean that those that have not been consumated face to face are any less strong.

Digital communication has enhanced and crucially speeded up the non face to face contact. Pre digital “pen-friends” were far more tenuous and less enduring than their digital equivalents.

However, it’s not just time constraints, it’s also a matter of cognitive limits; if you have 300+ “online friends” (or “buddies”), can you really relate to each and every one of them like you do with, say, your fellow students, colleagues, neighbors, and real-world friends? (Recalling a conversation by looking up a chat log doesn’t count… )
I think what’s usually missing in the online world are actual shared experiences – be it a school trip, a business project, a party, or simply casual encounters on the garden fence. This usually helps establish a unique identity for the respective person in the mind. (Collaborating online – e.g. on an open-source project coordinated via mailing lists – can provide some of those aspects, but not the whole range.)

Of course there’s also convergence (e.g. people meeting in real life eventually), so it’s not a black-and-white issue. Also, modern facilities like e-mail, IM, Facebook or Twitter definitely do make it easier to keep in touch. But they cannot overcome our inherent cognitive limits.

Just my two cents…