The Growing Popularity of Facebook

Davey Winder writes in his blog on ITPro that “Grown up’s invade Facebook”. It’s an interesting article quoting some statistics that prove what I had begun to realise was true over the past few weeks – that the Community networking site Facebook is the new MySpace for adults!

I’ve been a member of Facebook for a few months now, but have noticed in the past few weeks that lots and lots of people I know are joining Facebook. These aren’t the “usual suspects”, my friends & acquaintances who are seasoned on-line gurus and who you can find on all the major community sites – no, I’m talking folk I’ve never seen use a Community Site at all before.

I’ve seen friends, clients, suppliers, vendors, business contacts, old colleagues and family members join Facebook. That’s an interesting mix – I’ve certainly now got more contacts on Facebook than I do on MySpace (which generally has a younger cooler demographic, which is of course why I fit in. Ahem…) and LinkedIn (which is aimed exclusively at building business contacts).

Communities on Facebook

Even the Microsoft Small Business Specialist Community has woken up and saw the opportunity, creating its own group for informal chat and discussion.

Generally, these Community Sites are a fad that run their course. I can’t even tell you which sites I’m member of anymore! You receive an invite via e-mail from a friend who’s already a member, you sign up – you never use it. Some sites, like MySpace, get so many friends that it’s worth popping back now and again. But Facebook seems to have achieved critical mass – it’s reached the point where you pop back every day to see what your contacts have been upto *because* everyone is on the site! As fellow SBS’ers Andy pointed out over on ViJay’s blog – it’s addictive!

Facebook vs MySpace

Unlike MySpace, the interface is also “oldie” friendly – no hideous tunes and gaudy colours that teenagers might find thrilling, but more experienced members of society might find off putting!

Facebook also has some cool features for programmers to add their own applications. I’ve already got my Flickr photos linked in this way so they display on my Facebook page.

Say hello on Facebook

Not familiar with Facebook? You’ll have to join up first, but if you don’t, you’ll only get sick of the forthcoming stream of invites in your inbox anyway – so just do it! 🙂