Before we start thinking about the future, let�s stop for a minute and take a look at Facebook, what it is, and where it has been. It was founded in 2004, with the intention of creating a friendly environment for users to share, consume, and generate social connections and information. It was designed for users to represent their true identities (remember how incredibly anonymous the Internet used to be?), and has advanced to be a great platform for businesses of all kinds to promote their products, spread their brands, and make money from applications.
In late 2006, Facebook introduced the famous �News Feed,� which keeps track of your friends� activities and thereby provides great leverage for users to stay in touch with each other. Then, in 2007, Facebook unveiled its application platform, which has allowed thousands of developers to create, promote, and share their customized Web applications, which have the potential to maximize sales, advertising reach, and monetization strategies. Then, last year, Facebook introduced Facebook Connect, which gives users the ability to leverage Facebook to expand and strengthen social connectivity to other Web sites, on the desktop, and even to mobile devices.
But you knew all that, right? So, let�s get to the good stuff: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg�s recently shared thoughts about the future of Facebook. Here are some highlights:
Mark wanted to reinforce his intention to continue pushing people toward expressing their real identities online, with real associations and correct information, building on the strength of the �social graph� idea by leveraging Facebook�s trust on the Web. No wonder security is such a big issue for Mark, who says Facebook is constantly trying to perfect its protection against phishing attacks and worms� but luckily, the genuine quality of connections makes it difficult for the bad guys to create false identities to access the system.
Mark also mentioned that the strength of the Facebook �inbox� over regular e-mail is due to the fact that you don�t need to know someone�s e-mail address to contact them � you just have to know their identity in order to initiate and sustain contact with them.
On the topic of content construction, Mark said that things are becoming simpler by the day, from blog posts to status updates to photo albums � and don�t forget the flexibility with which users can treat posts, by posting conversationally and deleting or editing posts � another advantage that e-mail just doesn�t have. Zuckerberg then discussed the great potential he sees in the future of Facebook�s monetization goals, as Facebook is able to determine what exposures to invest in based on the individual user�s activities. He added that he is quietly optimistic, which is reasonable, considering the initial revenue struggles of social media as a whole.
Mark wanted to clear up misconceptions about Facebook�s advertising sales success, so he provided the following statistics: 70% revenue growth year over year, 5 quarters of EBITDA productivity, and based on the current estimate, 2010 looks �very positive.� In this economic climate, whether despite or because of it, that�s pretty good news to everyone in social media! Not to mention that Facebook has been working with Microsoft on ad deals � the Xbox Live integration and other integrations seem to have served as the start of a promising relationship.
Mark talked briefly about games, and how games on Facebook have boomed recently, as a great percentage of Facebook�s 52,000+ applications. These apps have provided a great platform for socially networked friends to interact while playing. He also mentioned a topic that Facebook initially overlooked (especially in comparison to its competitor MySpace), but which is currently adding great value: Music. Music was initially a touchy area because of legality and copyright issues � surprisingly, though, you can now find many music-based applications, even those developed by (or rather, for!) the recording industry itself.
Mr. Zuckerberg insisted that, despite the growth of local applications (apps with a regional basis), the Facebook platform has provided a uniformity of data that maintains authenticity and legitimacy.
Finally, Mark revealed his optimistic long-term view of the platform: In the next ten to 20 years, people will not only be able to completely trust and share all personal information; they will also be able to take total control of it.
We�re looking forward to that too, Mark!
facebook is excellent as its growing application by adding new features they try to keep user there such as game etc. also this is nice place to promote business as mention. so will wait and see how this grate network site will change its future face