Facebook Turns Six: Considering the World’s Largest Social Network
Facebook, the world’s largest social networking website, turns six today. It’s an amazing accomplishment for the company and a true testament to the staying power of social media. Just look at some of these recent Facebook findings.
- In the last year alone, the site jumped from 150 million users to 350 million users worldwide.
- A recent study from the Pew Research Center shows that 73% of adults over the age of 30 have a profile on Facebook.
- According to marketing research company Comscore, Facebook is on the verge of achieving “technological lock-in,” a phenomena where the usage of a technological tool becomes so great that its users will not give it up, even if a better alternative exists.
Even in spite of overwhelming dissatisfaction with Facebook’s recent privacy policy changes (from both users and world governments) the company is still charging forward and is close to eclipsing Yahoo as the third most visited website on the Internet.
So what does Facebook’s sixth birthday mean for web users? For one thing, it’s a loud and clear broadcast that social networking is not a fad. Some websites may come and go (take pioneering social networking website Friendster for example), but the desire for individuals to connect with one another online isn’t going anywhere.
Second, it means that we all have to take a greater interest in our privacy and security online. As Facebook, and social networking in general, continues to grow, it will become the target of countless cyberattacks. How each Internet company chooses to protect its users, and how users choose to protect themselves, is something that we all need to consider as the world becomes even more dependent on web-based technology.
Dismissing the important role that the Internet plays in our lives, and the dangers that come with it, is short-sighted and irresponsible. Facebook is flat-out enormous. Twitter, while flatlining in growth recently, has captured the imagination of the media and become an important vehicle for disseminating news (and rumors) to the world. Taking proactive measures to protect your identity online is not only the smart thing to do, it’s the right thing to do to preserve the privacy ecosystem of the web.
