I can attest to the hard work that Ethan has done on the AIR CPU problem and on my Windows 7 machine it behaves very well - actually much better than other AIR apps I have tried.
Even more so than Steam there is Impulse from Stardock which has an active software section. They not only have their own software but from 3rd parties as well.
I should note that the post was written by one of our writers and I don't necessarily agree with him which I will be writing up a rebuttal type post, so thanks for reminding me of Steam (which I use all the time).
The other one to keep an eye on is OnLive, which right now is just games but rumor has is looking at movies as well so it would be a short step to include software.
I agree with you that some of the best so-called social networks are the old-style web forums. Having run for a very long time I see more of a 'community' built around it that any social network and really isn't that what it is all about - being a part of a community?
excuse me for a second .... it might not be direct sharing with advertisers but the more that Facebook cons you into sharing the more valuable your information is to Facebook as a way for advertisers to target their ads. So in effect the more you share your information with a growing pool of people the more advertisers gain in the process. It might be indirect but you are still provide fodder for the marketers and advertisers.
The quoted statement is false. You could have everything public, or everything shared with friends only, and it wouldn't matter with respect to advertisers.
Yes, facebook benefits if you share more on facebook. Similarly, every other website on the planet benefits more if you use it more.
A common idea is that facebook makes decisions based upon making money from advertising. Here, the accusation is that facebook is pushing people to be more public because of advertising money. First, facebook doesn't make decisions based upon short term monetary gain. Second, this is explicitly false, as I've already outlined.