The next big thing?
Last month Facebook reached the magical figure of 150 million users.
It did it in just 5 years.
To put that number into perspective take a look at how long it took other products to reach that same number.
Facebook = 5 years
iPod = 7 years
Mobile phone = 14 years
Television = 38 years
Telephone = 89 years
Source
posted by Stan Lee at 4:52 pm
5 Comments:
Hi Stan,
you present powerful figures here. But I'm afraid it's grossly misleading; and leave out whether these are U.S. or international figures -or a combination of both.
• Facebook is an international online social networking website, which is a free service. Not a fee based "product" as you suggest in your statement. In addition, Facebook is not restricted by age like the 18 year old Financial Liability Act of cell phone users/purchasers. Anyone with with an email account from anywhere on the planet with internet access can simply login, even though they might not be of the "required" age limit. Many facilities such as colleges (or family members who share) have free computer access and WiFi as do many libraries, cafes, businesses, schools, youth clubs, etc.
• Land line phones were dependent solely on the U.S. communication infrastructure which only until recently (due to remote geography) took decades to complete. About 25% of these land line numbers have diminished due to market choices in cell phone only purchases & use.
• iPod is a fee based product, which by all views is considered costly. Cell phones have taken on this capacity as mp3 players which has somewhat decreased iPod's popularity and sales.
Not everyone from all age groups can obtain a free landline, cell phone, iPod or TV. What might prove to be more impressive, is if you give timeframe gains of competing sites like: Twitter, Perfspot, Yelp, etc.
MySpace gained 253 million in 6 years. Facebook currently has 175 million. Will Facebook reach the 253 million within six years as well? Or will they reach a saturation point prior to that?
@Brand Oven Thanx for the incredibly detailed stats. Much appreciated.
I gave Facebook a fair shot. I tried it for 3 months. I uploaded pictures, connected with long lost college mates, commented on family photos, tagged, got tagged, etc.
It isn't for me. I closed my page. Facebook is not the indispensable social network people make it out to be. It is, quite honestly, totally dispensable.
fwiw, I have been an active participant in forums (over 4,000 posts at one), I have a Twitter account with over 1,200 updates, and a blog w/400 articles. So I'm no social media slouch. Facebook just doesn't jive with my personality. I'm a much more private person. And I don't care for Facebook's arrogance, especially w/respect to how it feels about people's data.
Where Facebook has been useful for me is in the workplace.
I introduced it to several colleagues who were not exactly up to speed on the wonders of the web. They have all learned a lot from it.
They now regularly upload photos. They tag and share stuff. They update their status. Now they're twittering.
Perhaps someone could start a course called social networking for beginners and base it around Facebook.
Amazing to think about how accelerated things are becoming. Just think about how quickly Google has grown into the behemoth they are, and then compare that with the rest of the Fortune 500 in the US. Google has done in a decade what used to take a century ... give or take some exaggeration.
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