Centralized vs Decentalized

I have written a post before on FriendFeed, the social media aggregator if you will.  I didn't really get it then and I still do not now.  To me it seems like a bit of social media overload.  Many bloggers I think have come to the same conclusion.  Anyway, I came across a post my Michael Arrington this morning referencing a post by Loic Le Muer on the decentralization of our social networks.  

In his post, Loic argues that our social presence used to be very centralized.  Basically it revolved around our blogs, if one wrote a blog.  Whereas now, that presence has been scattered and diluted all across that so called "series of tubes".(Sorry I couldn't help but throw this in somewhere, it is too damned funny).  We post updates on Facebook, others on Twitter, and so on.  Loic presents the fact that places like FriendFeed and Socialthing are good in that they help usre-centralize our content into one place.  However, event though these services help, he adds

The challenge for Friendfeed and the like is that while I really like all my services gathered in one place, I would rather that these would be centralized on my blog instead of a third party service. Yes you can cross post or add badges, but it's not really like a center feed in your blog. What I like about my blog is that it is my space, I own it, I can customize it and change it, I do not depend on anybody (except the software and host, TypePad of course, needless to say). 

I tend to agree wth this points.  I can obviously see the benefit in a tool to help centralized our online social presence, but I still cannot help but say that when I go to FriendFeed, i am somewhat overwhelmed by it all.  A virtual river of social updates that I seem to get lost in.  And yes, I would prefer to control and aggregate my own data.

So what about you all, good ?  bad ?  Where do you want your presence ?  Own it or rent it so to speak…