History of Facebook: The Social Network at Six

HISTORY OF FACEBOOK

Yesterday marked the 6th birthday of the social networking site Facebook. What started back at Harvard — and initially only open to college students or those with email addresses that ended in .edu until September 2006 — Facebook is now the fastest growing social network with over 400 million people using it to connect with friends, relatives and co-workers around the world. Half the active users login daily. Last year at this time, there were only 150 million onboard, meaning there are more people on Facebook than there are people in the United States. Of course, this social network is international, with about 70% outside the US. Over 15% of users access it via mobile devices. Those mobile users are 50% more active on Facebook.

Facebook is a company, a platform, a brand, a phenomenon, a veritable force of modern culture. There are over half a million applications on Facebook. Facebook Connect is becoming a popular authentication protocol with over 80 thousand websites offering it. Almost three quarters of a million local businesses have active Pages on Facebook. Last night, to celebrate their birthday, the Facebook staff held a Hackathon, an event where they stayed up all night coding and building out new ideas for the next wave of products. This is expected to appear today by way of new site navigation capabilities.

The estimated value of the company is rumored to be north of $14B, an order of magnitude greater than last year. Speculation abounds.

As I’ve mentioned in another article, some people live in Facebook, enjoying the “walled garden” environment where they can send messages, update their status, comment on other’s status, announce events, share photos, tag them, give gifts, chat, use custom applications, and play games — all in the same environment, without using other services. Not only is Facebook becoming an aggregator of web services, it is also becoming the go-to location for clubs, groups, even churches — where people can share publicly or privately their taste, ideas, opinions and interests. It’s becoming the new “social dashboard.”

This has exemplified and accelerated the Web 2.0 concept of “transparency” discussed in detail in Wired Magazine.

• Recruiters are using an applicant’s “social graph” to ascertain suitability.
• Jobseekers are using it to network to previous fellow-coworkers and employers.
• Friends are expanding their networks through friends-of-friends.
• Parents are on Facebook to keep an eye on their children.
• Older folks are using it to keep their finger on the “pulse” of what younger people are talking about.
• Companies are using it to create online “buzz.”
• Websites now sport “ShareThis” on Facebook links. Mine does at the bottom of this article.
• Celebrities, performers, and the President are members.

Security and privacy issues continue to haunt Facebook — some foreign governments have blocked access in the past — and reflect members’ uncertainty in an increasingly networked and public world. Facebook account hacking, spam, and phishing malware is more of a concern than even last year. Nevertheless, people still continue to join and expand their personal network across work, school, and a variety of real and virtual associations. And it’s not just among Generation-Y. Last year the fastest growing demographic was the 35-54 year old segment — it is now the largest segment of all on Facebook. This year, the 55+ demographic growth rate is the fastest growing, almost 10X over last year. Indeed, one third of Facebook users are older than 35 years old.

Do you have a Facebook profile? Mine is here.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

Related posts:

1. History of Global Social Media Holiday: April 16=Foursquare Day
2. History of User Interfaces: iPad, the 5th Generation
3. History of the iPad: When is a Tablet not a Tablet?

Tagged as: Facebook, History