Now that Facebook has opened to the public, many people are wondering whether users are actually going to bail, or stick with the changes they've rally so passionately against (open registrations and feeds). I already mentioned CommonRoom as one alternative that Facebook users might be attracted to, and now here are two more.

Campusbug combines social networking, online education, and e-commerce into a useful service. Unique features include a bibliography generator, games, a question and answer section, a notes market, paper help, practice tests, and more... It's a great idea to combine the social aspect of Facebook with the academic aspect found at many other websites into a single, easy to use service. Member pages look highly customizable and thus typically ugly, much like Myspace.

Uspot combines college networking with social media sharing, so members can share music, photographs, and videos. Members can start and subscribe to podcasts, post and browse jobs, and chat in a built in chat client.

The bottom line is that these services are trying to catch up to Facebook by exploring features that Facebook won't. Facebook is smart in not adding every feature it can think of, because it clutters the service and creates more problems than benefits. Instead, it presents only the most necessary features and polishes them. Combined with its amazingly simple and well designed interface, Facebook came up with the right formula at the right time.

My prediction is that each of these second tier college networks will find a small, loyal following of students, but will never rise to the level of greatness where Facebook currently stands alone (at least in the college market). Both are solid guns, but neither currently has the firepower it takes to take down Facebook.