Paul Ford has a nice meditation on the power of social networks to convey narrative, and why we still need curators (and journalists) to organize all the information out there for us, rather than computer algorithms:
I keep sensing some serious hurt feelings from the older-media side — “Why would you love that thing instead of me?” They act like my wife would if I brought home a RealDoll. But it’s not like that. I don’t think people love Twitter or Facebook in the same way they might love Parks and Recreation or Twilight. Rather, we like the beer and tolerate the bottle. And even if we have those other browser tabs open, we’re still hungry for endings.