The Facebook Empire has seen a growth unmatched by any other human interaction or company in all of history. Facebook announced that this week it expects to reach the 500 million user milestone. That is half a billion users in the companies short life span of six years.
The Washington Post reports that “the population inhabiting Facebook now equals that of the United States, Japan and Germany combined. Or, two Mexicos and a Brazil.”
So does this secure Facebook’s place in the future of the internet and social networking world. Most of us remember the tragic fall of MySpace, but its failure became Facebook’s rise to power. Facebook has far surpassed anything that Myspace was ever able to accomplish. But the story does remind us that someone can come along with an idea as novel as tagging pictures, so that they are automatically found under your friends photos, and assume the facebook role from five years ago.
However the multi-billion dollar empire that Facebook is now may be insurmountable. Constantly updating in terms of form and function, Facebook is no idle domain. Facebook has adopted a role of utility. Its value lies solely in its users and their interactions.
For this reason, I pose that Facebook is not failsafe even today. Even though many people have photo journals of their entire lives stored of the Facebook servers, it only takes one developer with the ability to pull content from the facebook page and successfully drag this value away from the site.
Facebook is becoming almost too jumbled in its content. This is the reason the site has attempted to focus its news feed and provide even more direct targeting for advertising. Users have yet to realize it, but the content being thrown at them Is all too often irrelevant and not at all what they are seeking.
Facebook brought the “list” into the equation to try and focus news feed content. But for the most part lists are too much of a hassle to set up, and have been a lost cause for the most part. Don’t get me wrong, all the content is still there. However, it takes a relatively savvy facebook user to pull it up easily. So here in lies the most crucial aspect to Facebooks continued success, now that it trumps the United States in population. Facebook must prevent its growing population from muddling the value of user content.
In the end it is clear Facebook is here to stay, at least for now. The future of Facebook and the future of social networking is a mystery to everyone. Just consider for a second that six years ago the word facebook meant nothing. Five years ago it was operating out of a college dorm. This week it surpassed a half a billion users. It is amazing how fast things can change.
The Government has been reaching out to facebook users
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