The wonderful world of media is an ever changing thing. You never know what they
are going to come up with next. From electronic devices to interweb networks, people are
researching ways to improve them minute by minute. Facebook just so happens to be one of
those things. It’s a phenomenon that continues to gather users as time goes by. But what is
it about this Facebook that draws people in? Where did it come from? Where is it going in
the future? Hopefully I will be able to help answer some of those questions!
Let’s start with the history of Facebook. Facebook was dreamed up in a dorm room of
one Harvard student, Mark Zuckerberg. Originally known as “thefacebook,” Zuckerberg launched
his idea in February 2004 and it spread like wildfire throughout the Harvard campus. When Zuckerberg
realized that his idea could be bigger than he ever imagined he sought the help from
two of his friends, Dustin Moskavitz and Chris Huges, who helped take it to the
next level. In time, it spread to Stanford and Yale where it was also widely
accepted. Then in August 2005, “the face book” became known as Facebook and it
became a national student phenomenon (Yadav). The company also expanded to add
high schools networks, including international school networks, and added the
photo application to its repertoire leaving Facebook with over 5.5 million
users by December 2004 (“Facebook”). But just when things looked bright for young
Zuckerberg, things got ugly quick.
In its early days, Facebook was threatened with a serious lawsuit by a competing
network, known as connectU, and almost got shut down because of it. ConnectU
believed that Zuckerberg had stolen their ideas and passed them off as Facebook.
Eventually, the lawsuit was dismissed and Facebook continued its success (Yadav).
In 2006, a few of Facebook’s improvements included: expanding to work networks,
the development of platform launches, the development of the notes application, and
news feeds/ mini-feeds were introduced. By December they increased their users to
more than 12 million people. In 2007, some of their big moments included: the launch of the
marketplace application and launch of a Facebook platform for mobile phones. By
October, Facebook acquired over 50 million active users, including some from
over-seas. Two million of the 12 were Canadian and one million of the 12 were
from the UK. With Facebook now spreading to other countries, in 2008 Facebook
launched in different languages such as Spanish, French, and German and IM
chatting also became available. By August, they reached over 100 million active
users. In 2009, they acquired the FriendFeed and the “like” buttons to statuses,
comments, pictures, etc. By December of that year, the network reached over 350
million active users. In 2010, Facebook launched the places application and by
July they got to over 500 million users. Finally, in July of 2011, Facebook
reached over a whopping 750 million users (“Facebook”). Since the beginning of its time, Facebook has
definitely become a success. But we all know that no matter how good something
may seem, there’s a little bad in everything, even Facebook.
Usually when I think about Facebook one word comes to mind, obsession. According
to January 2011 Facebook statistics, I am not alone in this obsession with the popular
social network. Approximately one in thirteen people on Earth have a Facebook and over
50 percent of them log on daily. It’s not only younger people either. The 35+ demographic makes up 30
percent of the entire Facebook population as of now and continues to grow. To
put it in better perspective, in just 20 minutes over 1 million links are
shared, 2 million friend requests are accepted, and about 3 million messages
are sent. Overall, over 700 billion minutes are spent on Facebook over a span
of a month (“digitalbuzzblog”). Here is a video that will help put some of the
statistics I’ve mentioned in perspective and show you more information on the subject.
(The World is…)
It is safe to say that people do spend a lot of their time on Facebook. I know from personal
experience that that’s true, with myself and people around me. This obsession
could be seen as a bad thing with some people but as long as Facebook is around,
the social network will have a dedicated following from its loyal fans. I think it is
also safe to say that the future of Facebook will be bright. Every year Facebook seems to be
significantly gaining users to their quota but with more people to please, it
might be harder to keep them all happy.
Many of the improvements that Facebook is making, like
the newer photo display and feature that groups friends into categories, seems
to be accepted by its users, but a recent change in the last few months goes to
show the company that they have to be careful of how drastically they change
things. In September 2011, when Facebook users logged on to view their profiles
they noticed a change to the home page. The company had tweaked the home page
making it look different with the new newsfeed and ticker layout. From then on
the format was dubbed “the Facebook inside a Facebook” or the “new Facebook.” The
change didn’t fly as well as they hoped for. There were several Facebook users
that took to Twitter to let their opinion be known. Many of the comments were
negative but it was also pointed out that there are many changes that happen to
the site and people eventually get used to them. Overall, Facebook stresses
that the reason they make changes to the site is to keep people engaged and
interested. They also mentioned that the alterations they make are typically
based off user requests. The company also conducts studies of activity on the
site and tweak things based on what they think people will enjoy (“foxnews”).
In the big picture, I don’t think Facebook is going anywhere for a long time.
Even if people don’t like a certain change, I don’t think enough of the users will
officially delete their profile resulting in a negative impact on the popular network site.