Phenomal+Facebook+by+Tom+McCarty


 * = [[image:facebook-logo.png width="228" height="228" align="right"]] ||= Phenomenal Facebook

Its Growth and Success

by Tom McCarty ||

In February 2004 Mark Zuckerberg, along with fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, and Chris Hughes, gave birth to thefacebook.com (Yadav). Soon after, it was eventually named facebook.com. At the time he created Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg was a sophomore at Harvard University. The name for Facebook came from the publications that some colleges pass out to students at the beginning of the year to help students get to know each other better, called a Facebook.

 In the beginning there was only Harvard. Facebook was created as a way for Mark Zuckerberg and other Harvard students to keep in touch over the Internet and get to know each other better. Facebook became so popular, in just a matter of months, that is was soon opened to other colleges. By the end of the following year it was also open to high schools. The year after that it was opened to the general public, as long as you were 13 and older.

 Through Facebook’s short life, it has grown rapidly to nearly one billion users. I have put together a chart using Microsoft Excel that shows the trend of the number of Facebook users (Facebook).

 When looking at the trend, you can start to see, in the last year, a leveling out as it reaches the one billion mark. It is pretty clear that Facebook is starting to get to a point where it will level out completely, especially if it ever succeeds at having every living earthling on its website, which is not likely.

 As of 2007, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has become an instant billionaire. Forbes ranked him the youngest billionaire at 23 years old (Forbes), and he is certainly one of the wealthiest 20-somethings of the world. Facebook makes their money mainly from advertising revenue. That's why you'll see banner ads on Facebook and that's how they can manage to create such a great service to you for no cost.

 Facebook has become such a giant that in February of 2012 (SEC), Facebook filed for an IPO (Initial Public Offering) with the Securities Exchange Commission (Pepitone) and went public a month later on the 18th of May. It opened at a price of about 40 dollars per share and did not do at all well at staying at that price as it has continued to drop even up to now where it is at $19.30 as of August 28, 2012. I don’t really understand why they chose to go public except for possibly the reason of lining the owners pockets with more money.

 An interesting video showing the evolution of the search term “facebook” can be seen at this website: Google Insights by clicking "View Change Over Time" and then the "Play" button. Facebook is a great way to meet friends and keep up on what they are doing. Once you add a person to your friend list you will always know when they are adding things to their newsfeed or updating their profile.

 The social aspect is the main reason Facebook is so popular. As humans, we all want to talk to our friends and neighbors and Facebook makes this possible even if they are on the other side of the world.

 The popularity of the Internet has exploded in recent years, and social media wasn’t far behind. Blogs (like Wordpress) were one of the first types of social media. They allowed anyone to state an opinion, share experiences and spark conversations, all with anonymity. While they allowed people to discuss topics, blogs lacked the interaction and chat capabilities that people truly wanted.

 Social media sites like MySpace and Facebook soon popped up to fill these gaps. So why was Facebook more popular than MySpace? Perhaps it’s because of the simple design; MySpace profiles often played music that many may find annoying, and often had designs that were so “busy” that it can be difficult to read the information on the page. Facebook, on the other hand, has a clean and simple design. It’s easy to view pictures and read what’s going on in people’s lives. However, if there is anything that people find annoying about facebook is the game or app requests. I personally don’t play any games on facebook but get many requests from friends to join in and play. I block all the game requests I get, but with all the new apps, I always have to block something.

 We have always wanted to keep in contact with friends since time began. Long ago, people in Europe would send mail via messengers. In the U.S., The post office was popular for being able to send mail to others to keep in contact and update on their lives. The next best way to keep in contact was the telephone. It was the same as mail, only instant, and people could here each other’s voices instantly at the speed of light. But in order to update everybody through mail or phone, one would have to send a lot of letters or make many phone calls.

 People enjoy Facebook because of its obvious social benefits. It’s a great way to see how old friends, that we haven’t seen in ten, fifteen or even twenty years, are doing and then deciding if we want to start communicating. This social media platform also provides a perfect way to stay in touch with friends and family no matter how far apart we are. Businesses may enjoy Facebook for many different reasons including the easy integration options and free advertising opportunities. Prior to the Internet, the main avenues of advertising were radio or television commercials, printed ads in newspapers or magazines, direct mail marketing and word of mouth. Many of these avenues can be extremely expensive, so businesses saw a great alternative in Facebook “pages”. Becoming more prevalent is the use of facebook logins as a simpler and quicker way to sign up for membership to their websites.

 Small businesses can take advantage of Facebook pages for practically no cost at all; and in some cases, word of your business can spread quickly around the social network. That’s a potential customer base of more than nine hundred million people around the world. Also, with more than 900 million users, it’s almost impossible to go an entire day without seeing some reference to Facebook.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> Facebook is popular because it connects people around the globe. It’s a place where you can share what’s happening in your life with a single sentence. It’s a place where businesses can find new customers and interact with their customers quickly and easily. With twenty million new apps being added to Facebook every day, it’s clear that this social giant is not going anywhere!

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> Ultimately, the above image described by its author says it all: “It's not just a pretty picture, it's a reaffirmation of the impact we have in connecting people, even across oceans and borders.” (Butler)

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">Works Cited <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Butler, Paul. Facebook, Inc. c. 2010. Facebook. 13 Dec. 2010. Web. 8 Aug. 2012. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"><@http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/visualizing-friendships/469716398919>

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Pepitone, Julianne. “Facebook files for $5 billion IPO.” CNN. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. 2 Feb 2012. Web. 6 Aug 2012. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"><@http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/01/technology/facebook_ipo/index.htm>

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Facebook. “Newsroom.” Facebook, Inc. n.d. Web. 6 Aug. 2012. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"><@http://newsroom.fb.com/content/default.aspx?NewsAreaId=20>

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Forbes. “Mark Zuckerberg.” Forbes, Inc. n.d. Web. 6 Aug. 2012. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"><@http://www.forbes.com/profile/mark-zuckerberg>

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">SEC. “Amendment No. 4 to Form S-1 REGISTRATION STATEMENT.” U.S. Govt., n.d. 23 Apr. 2012. Web. 6 Aug. 2012. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"><@http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512175673/d287954ds1a.htm,>

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Yadav, Sid. “Facebook – The Complete Biography.” Mashable. 25 Aug 2006. Web. 7 Aug. 2012. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"><@http://mashable.com/2006/08/25/facebook-profile>

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px;">Google. Google Insights for Search. n.d. Web. 28 Aug. 2012. < <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">http://www.google.com/insights/ search/#q=facebook&cmpt=q <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px;">>.