Everyone descending to hear Larry. Image: Oracle OpenWorld/Flickr

Talk about a study in contrasts. In the dying hours of OpenWorld, Larry Ellison and Oracle unveiled their own social network.

Even the name was awkward. The Oracle Social Network, Ellison called it, and as he demoed the thing on Wednesday afternoon during his closing keynote speech at Oracle’s flagship conference, he struggled to describe the basic ins and outs of a system that mimics what’s become commonplace with Facebook and Twitter and even corporate social services like Chatter from Salesforce.com.

It was a moment that...