Facebook continues to turn the web upside down as the third phase of the web continues to mature.
The first phase of he web started with portals such as Yahoo and AOL, providing sources of information from news to mega categories of information. The reason this ocurred was that search engine technology was so immature that finding information was cumbersome and difficult. These platforms dominated from the mid 1990′s until early in the new century.
The second phase was the rise of Google, commencing with its launch in 1997, with the mission statement.
“To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”
The new technology produced relevant and accurate search results enabling most people to find what they want on the first page.
Facebook Changed the Game
Facebook changed the game in 2004 (no one knew it at the time) with the development and launch of its social network after overwhelming the trail blazers Friendster and MySpace.
Social networks were initially seen as a fad for teenagers (some marketers and CEO’s still think it is) and Google continued to increase its domination of the Internet.
Today it has surpassed Google in time spent on its platform (that occurred in 2010) and Google is playing catchup with the launch of its Google+ social network a few months ago.
Facebook is changing the way communicate, market and share. The “third phase” of the web has well and truly arrived!
Self Expression is “Cool”
It is disrupting traditional media as “self expression becomes the new entertainment” – Ariana Huffington
Social media networks are democratizing marketing as startups, small and medium companies and brands promote their brand globally at high speed in real time without million dollar budgets.
These young upstart companies are threatening mature players in their industry in a matter of 1 or 2 years. (have you heard of Zygna, the social gaming company).
So what does the next 5 years hold?
The Latest Facts and Figures on Facebook
- More than 800 million active users
- More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
- Average user has 130 friends
- More than 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages)
- Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
- On average, more than 250 million photos are uploaded per day
- Over 90 billion photos will be uploaded onto Facebook in the next 12 months
- More than 70 languages available on the site
- More than 75% of users are outside of the United States
- Over 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translations application
- On average, people on Facebook install apps more than 20 million times every day
- Every month, more than 500 million people use an app on Facebook or experience Facebook Platform on other websites
- More than 7 million apps and websites are integrated with Facebook
- More than 350 million active users currently access Facebook through their mobile devices
- More than 475 mobile operators globally work to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products
Infographic: Courtesy of Woorkup.com
Other Source: Facebook
Image by Coletivo Mamembe
