Six years after its creation, Facebook has reached 500 million users. Now a massive 1 in 12 of us have a Facebook account. If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world.
Created by university student Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, Facebook initially began as a college room project, only available to fellow members of Harvard University. Quickly, the social networking site gained popularity amongst other university students and in 2006 it was made available to anyone over the age of 13. It has one of the most successful social networking sites, prevailing against the odds and succeeding where others sites had failed.
Social media has been prevalent in the way we now communicate with each other and communicate information. Facebook was seen as a key tool in the recent general election, charting public opinion of the political parties and hosting mock elections which saw huge figures of users voting.
However, Facebook’s journey has not been without hurdles. It faced criticism over complicated privacy settings by users who had unknowingly made private information public. Eventually Facebook were forced to cave into pressure and adopt a simpler structure. Facebook has also become a source of conflict in the work place with many companies blocking the site, fearing it was an easy distraction for workers.
The Social Network is a new film about the rise of Facebook, documenting the story from its birth, and using the tagline “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.”
But how will Facebook fare over the coming years? Will it’s success continue to rise as new users join everyday? Or will there be a new social networking site in the future that manages to eclipse Facebook’s success?
