Flyertalk and Facebook
I wanted to point out that Facebook has become massively popular as a platform for discussions on a large variety of topics, including those that directly compete with Flyertalk. As FB becomes more a "go to" source for information on specific airline programs, aircraft configuration, ticketing, and so forth, the deficiencies of FB's platform as host of serious discussions are plentiful and glaring, yet people persist, presumably because FB is there and they spend a lot of time on it anyway. Given this, why would IB want to make FT a less useful platform, one more like FB? It seems to me that IB should be working to make FT more distinct and more useful, as a differentiator.
FT can't compete with FB by out-FBing FB. FT can only compete by being different, and better-suited for the task.