In the youth culture of social networks, the worst thing is to grow old and boring. I doubt if the Facebook whirl will continue for very long. I recently took a look at the new Plaxo Beta about a month back and I agree that Plaxo does have some advantages; they have a user base of 15 million and the new features directly address the challenges Facebook will have in moving to the business community.

Plaxo’s motivations, of course, are purely mercenary. Everyone wants a piece of Facebook’s magical billions. Where Facebook is weak, of course, are its not-so-private privacy settings. Your choice, when adding someone as a Facebook “friend” is to offer them either an insulting (and easy to spot) “limited profile” or open the kimono, drunken party shots and all.

Plaxo, by contrast, offers more fine-tuned controls in its new Pulse social network. The premise: Plaxo users will be able to designate contacts as dysfunctional family members, insincere friends, smarmy coworkers, casual acquaintances, or desperate hangers-on, and treat them accordingly - never leaving them the wiser as to their classification. Your friends will never know how limited you think they are.

Will users flock to Plaxo and use Pulse in the same way that they use Facebook today?

Even so, I’ve created a new account at Plaxo after long ago abandoning the service. I like that the news feed is not limited to Plaxo applications, and I intend to give it a fair shot. Perhaps it will steal some of my attention away from Facebook. We’ll see.