Facebook: The 10-year-old Adult

By ‘Sola Fagorusi
 
This month marks the 10th year anniversary of social networking giant – Facebook. It has been a decade’s work of connecting people across the continent. It has been ten durable years of hard work by the Palo Alto, California, USA based technology business to stay afloat and not go the path of Friendster, that packed up in 2004 and MySpace, whose sun permanently went East in 2008. It has also been more than half a decade of my use of this web-based service that makes it possible for individuals to put together public profiles, connect with users in a mutual way and also look through the connections others on the same platform are making. Like most people my age in Nigeria who utilise this creation of Mark Zukerberg today, one is certain their accounts were likely opened on a desktop computer and in a cybercafé. And staring at them must have been those two unique messages on the blue page on www.facebook.com; the first being ‘Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life’ and the second being a call to action ? ‘Sign up, it’s free and anyone can join.’ 10 years after, Facebook is still free and anyone can still join and cybercafés are an endangered species in tech business!
 
Founded February 2004, Facebook has a clear mission; it is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. The United States of America, no doubt, is delighted in the global impact Facebook has created and the force it has become. In 2011, during the State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama had clearly resonated this by saying – “None of us can predict with certainty what the next big industry will be, or where the new jobs will come from. Thirty years ago, we couldn’t know that something called the Internet would lead to an economic revolution. What we can do – what America does better than anyone – is spark the creativity and imagination of our people. We are the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook. In America, innovation doesn’t just change our lives. It’s how we make a living.” For a black man whose journey to the white house was made possible by this leverage on social media tools, particularly Facebook, he must have said this with a heart of gratitude.
 
Facebook’s sustained dedication to innovation is responsible for its relevance ten years after. Facebook’s intrusion in our lives according to research is only second to our huge dependence on Google. Launched as thefacebook.com, the website was only available to students of the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States – Harvard University. Later it was made available to students of Yale University, Stanford and Columbia University and in the last quarter of 2006, anyone with an email address and was 13 years plus could be on Facebook.  It was not until five years after launch that Zukerberg and his team saw the need for a ‘like’ button. I do not see Facebook adding a dislike function in the next decade knowing they are in the business of keeping users also happy.
 
The Social Network, a film depicting the founding of Facebook was released in 2010. Staring Jesse Eisenberg, the controversial and award-winning film captured the lawsuit that followed the success of Facebook. The release poster of the movie came with the message – ‘You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.’ Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and their trade partner Divya Narendra accused Zukerberg of stealing their idea for a social network and sued him for $140 million. Following a tiring lawsuit that lasted years, the twins got about $65 millions in settlement.
 
Facebook in just ten years has a history arguably as rich as multinational that have been in operation for years. With 1.23 billion monthly active users and 945 million being mobile users (minus users from China since Facebook is not yet allowed in the communist republic), 6,337 employees of at December 2013, a revenue of $7.87 billion in 2013, an Initial Public Offering in 2012 and a $64.32 stock price on NASDAQ as of Friday, 7th February, 2014 given its success with mobile advertising which now accounts for 53% of its total ad revenue as of the fourth quarter of 2013, a CEO (according to Forbes) with a personal worth of $19bn as of September 2013; the company has recorded a success that is worthy of approbation.
 
“Worldwide Mobile Phone Users: H1 2014 Forecast and Comparative Estimates” predicts that the global smartphone audience surpassed the 1 billion mark in 2012 and will total 1.75 billion in 2014 with new users in the developing regions of Asia-Pacific and the Middle East and Africa driving the increase. With the continued explosion in smart phones use and other tech gadgets, it is not unlikely that the next 10 years would be more competitive for Facebook. The company will offer to buy up smaller competitive platforms. It possibly may even consider hardware services and other new forms of businesses. Facebook will also have to battle with privacy issues which are the dominant complain that comes to its door. It has repeatedly had to deny its use of user data for other purposes. Facebook will continually have to stay on top of this in the coming decade where cyber security issue would be at the heart of internet policy discussions.
 
Facebook in the last 10 years has changed the way we socialise. It has made (citizen) journalists of so many people, especially those who share status updates regularly. It has made us our own Public Relations handler given the ways we share our pictures, locations and of course our comment on issues. It has also forced out a new set of tech entrepreneurs who inspired by the success of a sophomore have gone ahead to try their hands on now successful technological ventures. Facebook has also made it almost impossible to be lonely. There is always something to see on it or someone to chat with. There is a new status update that is worth a laugh or another than can draw soreness and tears. Facebook also altered history in the Middle East, especially in the African nations of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya where it defined the Arab Spring Revolution that toppled the political leadership that had been in place for decades.
 
What the future holds for Facebook may still lie in Warren Buffet’s submission during Facebook’s IPO. The renowned investor had quipped – ‘I’m an agnostic on a company like Facebook…it’s obviously an extraordinary business, but they’re the hardest ones to value, because the question is whether five or 10 years from now that they will be as extraordinary as they are now.”
 
For ten years of showing the staying power and creativity of youth embedded in eternal vigilance of the ever changing landscape of technology, I consequently heartily wish Zukerberg and his team a happy anniversary. And ten years from now, we will possibly revisit this piece to take stock once again.
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@SolaFagro on twitter