I’m sure that everyone must know about the phenomenon that is Facebook, if not, then you must be living under a rock the last couple of years. For the uninitiated, Facebook is a social networking community website, whereby people can create their own profile page, locate and message friends and family, post pictures and video, buy and sell goods/services as well as create and join different topic groups. Facebook started from humble beginnings in 2004 as a site for students from Harvard university to communicate with one another. Then it rapidly expanded to other colleges in the Massachusetts area and then all Ivy League schools. By 2005, with the help of venture capitalists, Facebook expanded to colleges in different countries and then highschools were added into the mix. In 2006, Facebook boasted an estimated 7 million users (and still growing) and had a rumoured asking price of $2 Billion (USD), which makes the much larger MySpace site seem like a bargain when it was purchased for $580 million (USD) by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

When I introduced to Facebook a couple of months back, my coworkers constantly insisted that I join the site since it was so interesting and addicting because it was brand new and EVERYONE was starting to go on it. I was a little reluctant to start because of my previous experience with other social network sites like AsianAvenue and Friendster. Both sites were fun to go on to meet and chat with new people, however, once you’ve explored everything and not meeting new friends, the novelty began to wear off. I’ll admit that I was addicted to Facebook in the beginning (I created my own profile and even my own DigitalLostBoys group! but I’ve even seen my own interest begin to decline. Unless the owners of the site can find new and innovative ways to hold my interest, it’s possible that Facebook will end up as a passing fad.

In the meantime, I’m sure that the brains behind Facebook have things up their sleeve plus they could definitely make it more customizable to users who are more tech saavy (like MySpace). They have allowed the community to program their own little applications that could be used on their respective Facebook pages. Companies have started to advertise on Facebook to harness the buying power of the community and increase the monetization of the site. I guess if these trends continue, Facebook will continue to be an Internet success story.

-Stephen