And you're correct: The trick to encouraging open source science is not to focus on the social networking tech -- that will be ready when you need it -- but to first attack the problem of doing quality lab work on the cheap. That's where the bottleneck is.
The biggest problem with shared facilities is the tragedy of the commons. In engineering -- or machining or woodworking or cooking, for that matter -- you quickly learn the importance of having your own tools. It only takes seconds to ruin a good tool. It only takes seconds to contaminate your cell culture, or your neighbor's cell culture, or an entire room full of your department's laboratory mice.
And mailing your samples off to a distant "virtual" lab is fine if you're studying disposable samples, or inorganic samples, or samples that have been permanently fixed and preserved on a glass slide. But living cells ship poorly even when you're allowed to ship them at all, and animals ship even more poorly than that. So often you've got to live next door to the equipment you're trying to share, and that's still expensive.
