The lack of privacy is the #1 grudge against social networks, such as Facebook. It is not only about your photos viewable by strangers. It is about your data retained by Facebook and packaged for sale to advertisers.
What if you had a Facebook-like system all for yourself? All your personal data is in your own database, not jumbled with other people∈s data. You keep the full control over who can view what, which messages are accepted, who receives your status updates.
The primary hurdle on the path to the “personal Facebook” is the cost of the server infrastructure. Not many people would shell out $100 per month to have an account on a truly private social network. Erlang on Xen is here to help.
Erlang on Xen can recreate your personal Facebook instance in seconds, while you still wait for the website appear. Thus the instance is running only when you need it and then goes away. This reduces the per month cost by orders of magnitude. Being in charge of your data, you may decide to sell the access to advertisers, at the price you deem fair.