I can attest to the hard work that Ethan has done on the AIR CPU problem and on my Windows 7 machine it behaves very well - actually much better than other AIR apps I have tried.
Even more so than Steam there is Impulse from Stardock which has an active software section. They not only have their own software but from 3rd parties as well.
I should note that the post was written by one of our writers and I don't necessarily agree with him which I will be writing up a rebuttal type post, so thanks for reminding me of Steam (which I use all the time).
The other one to keep an eye on is OnLive, which right now is just games but rumor has is looking at movies as well so it would be a short step to include software.
I agree with you that some of the best so-called social networks are the old-style web forums. Having run for a very long time I see more of a 'community' built around it that any social network and really isn't that what it is all about - being a part of a community?
excuse me for a second .... it might not be direct sharing with advertisers but the more that Facebook cons you into sharing the more valuable your information is to Facebook as a way for advertisers to target their ads. So in effect the more you share your information with a growing pool of people the more advertisers gain in the process. It might be indirect but you are still provide fodder for the marketers and advertisers.
Michael I wrote up a post about this over at The Inquisitr praising your work on this .. the video was excellent and well worth watching and I really hope to see some more of this type of video both content and quality.
A buddy of mine (local) still has a backup on disk of his Maximus setup and from what I understand several of his mods-plugins are still making the rounds