Social networking site turns 6, boasts more than 400 million

By Peter Scobas ’12
THE ROUNDUP

“I use Facebook every day,” typed Greg Ali ’12 and Christopher Frame ’12 in an interview conducted on the social networking site.

“It allows for communication in a way I’ve never experienced before,” Ali added.

According to the Web site “All Facebook,” Facebook users, now in the 400 millions, share five times more than they did six months ago, bringing the average status amount to 12 per week.

Founded in February 2004, Facebook turned six years old in February.

Since its inception, Facebook users have spent an average of 55 minutes on the site every day, according to Facebook Press Room Statistics.

In response to these statistics, several Brophy students were interviewed over Facebook about their overall experience on the site.

All responded in saying that they used it every day, and every one of them said they would be more productive if they didn’t use it.

However, nearly every one of the students said their reason for using it so often was to communicate with people, and without it, there would be less communication with others, especially outside of Brophy.

So, now six years old, the site is the largest social network in the world, beginning to build a search deal with Microsoft, and continuing to alter its ever changing homepage.

Yet, a big question still remains.

What is in store for Facebook? As posed by Guardian News and Media, this social network site will most likely level off in growth after a seemingly exponential explosion over the last six years.

Will it go public? According to Facebook, they do not want to.

Will it latch upon Google’s staircase and climb to greatness? Or will it spiral down like their unfortunate counterpart MySpace when the next big thing hits the Internet?

Only time will tell.