Hi5 is a social network that’s very popular. They are seeing 100,000 new users every day. Facebook is seeing 200,000.

Since Hi5 is one of the partners in the Open Social platform, along with about 16 other social networks including MySpace, I wanted to find out about the social networking space from a company other than Facebook.

Also, at Facebook you never get to interview the geeks who actually build the service, so when I got a chance to interview Akash Garg, the Chief Technical Officer behind Hi5 I jumped at the chance. Geeks usually tell more details than the CEO will. Akash didn’t disappoint.

We talk about a variety of things about the social networking industry as well as his opinion of Open Social.

Here’s a 20-minute video where Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester Research’s new social media senior analyst, discusses with me Facebook and MySpace’s new ad platforms. He was briefed by both companies and has the best analysis out there right now.

Oh, and he invents a new word “fansumer.” Listen to the video and tell us whether you’re a fansumer of a brand. Oh, and my brother’s bar is on MySpace. We’ll play around with MySpace’s new hyper-targetted ads and see if they work.

Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester’s new social media analyst, has the best analysis I’ve seen of what Facebook and MySpace’s new ad platforms mean. TechMeme has the live blogging news from Facebook’s announcement.

I’m sitting with Jeremiah right now and we’ll be doing a video about this topic shortly on Kyte.tv.

So, this morning, what has changed from yesterday? Well, for one, every single company involved in the Open Social initiative is sending me press releases. Marc Canter, founder of Broadband Mechanics, is coming over later to talk. I’ll put him on Kyte or Seesmic or something and do another Twitter storm. He should be here between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.

Anyway, Don Dodge made the point that all of us in the blogosphere are saying that Facebook is dead. Now, last night I read thousands of posts and put some of the best ones onto my link blog. I only saw one guy say that Facebook is dead. So, I don’t know where Don Dodge gets his facts. But, that never stopped bloggers, right? Facts, schmacts, as long as they make a good story we’ll pay attention to them.

I tell ya, the more I understand “the new blogging world” the more I want to create a fake identity and just make stuff up about people. :-)

But, instead, I’m going to crawl back into my little walled garden.

Why am I going back to Facebook? Don Dodge is right that until the Open Social world provides some real end-user “goodness” that we’ll just stay inside the walled garden of Facebook. Here’s why I am staying inside Facebook for now.

1. It’s faster. I played on Plaxo last night and it’s slow to add new users. Frustratingly slow.
2. It’s prettier. I like Facebook’s UI better than MySpace or Plaxo or Ning or any of the others who signed onto the Open Social platform.
3. It’s here today. Yes, some Open Social things are shipping tonight (Plaxo, for instance, deserves credit for getting theirs done ASAP). Notice that when Facebook did its F8 event it had tons of apps SHIPPING at the time of the announcement. How many containers are shipping Open Social apps today? MySpace is a couple of months away, the execs told me yesterday.
4. FeedHeads. It’s the best Facebook app out there. Ironically it uses Google’s Reader. But Google didn’t fly Mario (the developer of that app) into the announcement and I haven’t seen him port his app yet. Now, remember, there are thousands of “Mario’s.” Until they all port their apps to Open Social I ain’t moving. Scrabulous is one of the best Facebook apps. Are they moving? Until they all move there’s no way I can leave Facebook.
5. My 5,000 friends. Yeah, I’m mad that I can’t have more friends, but look at the lockin of my friends’ network. I’m not moving ANYWHERE until all my friends ALSO MOVE. That’s going to be daunting.
6. In the next two months Facebook will announce SocialAds and revenue sharing for those ads. From what I’m hearing what they are announcing is pretty exciting too. If Facebook is PAYING ME to stay on Facebook do you think I’m going to move to Google?
7. Video messages. I’m doing a video conversation right now with Teresa up in Seattle. Until other systems do that I ain’t leaving.
8. Events. The event calendar inside Facebook rocks and is already the biggest event site on the Internet. Bigger, even, than Upcoming.org (which is actually a better event calendar than Facebook).
9. Videos. The way I can discover videos inside Facebook is addictive and compelling. I haven’t seen any Open Social member show me anything that blows that away.
10. The defacto rolodex. Facebook presents people’s information to me in a way that reminds me a lot of my business card collection. But with benefits. So far it’s FAR more advanced than anything else out there (although Plaxo is really close and I love how Plaxo integrates my contacts into Outlook and other places).

So, what are your reasons for staying in the walled garden?

Saran Chari is on my video channel talking about what today’s announcement with MySpace and Google means to developers like Flixter (they make a popular Facebook application).

I recorded this today after the Google/MySpace press conference.

I asked “does it let you build the same kinds of apps you build on Facebook?”

Answer “absolutely.”

I ask about limitations that he sees.

So, the conversation in the hallway here at the Nokia conference that I’m now at is “what will Yahoo and Microsoft do?” Followed quickly by “what will Facebook do?” Or, “is Zuckerberg scared?”

During the last panel, which funny enough was about developers and social networks, they asked the audience which social networks people used. Facebook? Nearly every hand went up. MySpace? 1/3rd of the hands went up? The rest? Very few hands went up.

So, Facebook is STILL in the driver’s seat. Or, as Erick Schonfield says over on TechCrunch: “Not so fast Mike.”

What is the best answer for what Zuckerberg will do that I’ve heard? “Embrace and extend.” Facebook should come out and say “we’re supporting Open Social too.” But then they should say “but we have a new ‘version 2.0′ platform to announce today that goes a LOT further than Open Social goes.”

That would take all the wind out of these sails.

As to Yahoo and Microsoft? Well, I talked with an executive from Yahoo today and he said he had nothing to announce. Translation: we have no clue. If they had a clue they would have had all guns blazing today. Now their choice is to join up. The industry support is too strong behind Open Social. Or, they could make a deal with Facebook on their “embrace and extend” strategy.

What will Microsoft do? Who cares. They bought the inventory on Facebook. They are safe for now by NOT having a developer strategy. I think that’s stupid long term, but heck, my Microsoft stock is going up so who cares?

I used my cell phone to record a very short interview with Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, and MySpace’s CEO, Chris DeWolfe, about what this announcement means today.

So Google is using a lot of new terms with its OpenSocial platform. So, what is a “container?”

A “container” is something that hosts apps built for this new platform. So, MySpace is a container. Bebo is a container. Eventually even my blog could be a container.

Disruption.

That’s what just happened.

Google and MySpace just dropped a major bomb on Facebook: they are joining forces to build a new social networking application platform that overnight will be considered the standard.

Chris, CEO of MySpace, about why open approach.

Joe from Flixter denotes why this is SO HUGE: his app will run anywhere that the OpenSocial platform is running. Plaxo. Ning. NewsGator. MySpace. No rewriting of apps.

One thing. Those apps now will run everywhere BUT Facebook.

TechCrunch and others are reporting that Google and MySpace are joining forces on the open social platform that Google has developed.

Let’s just say this is HUGE and totally validates what I said in my social media starfish talk yesterday.

UPDATE: I’m at Google right now in the press conference and this is confirmed.

I’m sitting in a press conference with TechCrunch, BusinessWeek, Forbes, and many other press.

More in a few minutes.

UPDATE: Chris DeWolfe, CEO of MySpace, says “This will create the new defacto standard.”