Privacy, Security & Virus Information

Has Facebook had its day?

Although Mark Zuckerburg, the co-founder of Facebook, won Time Magazine’s Person of the Year award in 2010, and is estimated to be worth around $13.5 billion, is his creation standing the test of time? Since its launch in 2004, Facebook’s popularity seemed unquestionable, and mobile versions of the site are some of the most downloaded applications on smartphones such as Apple iPads and BlackBerrys. However, with rival social networking sites such as Twitter becoming ever more popular, is it possible that Facebook has peaked?

According to online sources, Facebook has over 500 million users worldwide, and over 250 million of them log in every day. There’s no surprise then that Facebook is one of the biggest and most influential online industries to ever grace (or curse, depending upon your opinion) our Internet browsers. However, recent figures have suggested that Facebook’s popularity may be beginning to stall. The BBC is just one of the many sources who are questioning Facebook’s longevity, claiming that over 100,000 Facebookers stopped using the service in May in the UK alone, while figures from across the pond suggest that as many as six million people stopped using their accounts, and even de-activated them, in the same month.

So could it be that the novelty of Facebook has worn off? Facebook’s been around since 2004, and if you’ve been a user since the beginning, that’s almost seven years worth of your life spent dedicated to a particular site. I remember, way back when in 2008, that MySpace was the big thing – you could download free music, and customise your profile really easily. People seemed to love it. All of a sudden, Facebook seemed to burst onto the scene, and people abandoned their carefully-crafted MySpace pages for the blank, generic whiteness of Facebook. It could be that all social networking sites have a use-by date, and when that time comes, people are just looking for the next big thing.

And of course, Facebook has been labelled as the source of intense bullying, and even the cause of suicide, in the UK news for a good few years now. Robert and Tracey Mullaney are just one set of parents who had to undergo the horror of losing a child to suicide in 2010 as a result of bullying and harassment facilitated by Facebook.

Of course, Facebook is useful and wonderful in innumerable ways, and while its popularity may be jittering here in the UK, it’s positively booming in places such as Asia and South America. Will we ever see the back of Facebook, or will the brand-new Google+ usurp the social media giant? It’s difficult to say, so let the battle commence.

 

Article by Connor Sephton, 14th September 2011.