Has Facebook become the General Electric of the social web?

[Commentary] If Facebook’s current rate of growth continues (and there’s no obvious reason why it shouldn’t), the social network could have a billion active users within a matter of months. According to some estimates, it will soon have more than 16 percent of the display advertising market — a number that’s also growing rapidly — and will likely generate ad revenue of close to $4 billion this year alone (just one of the reasons why Google is so determined to develop its own Google+ network as a competitor). The big story is the integration between Facebook and a host of other services that have potentially much broader implications. Already, there are some apps — such as the music-sharing app Spotify — that will not work without a Facebook account. If you are determined not to belong to the network, you can’t use these services at all. That may not be a big deal right now, but what about when other more important services are also tightly integrated with a Facebook account?