Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (photo ©Guillaume Paumier) announced that his social network has reached one billion users. About 600 million of those users connect through mobile devices. This milestone was actually reached on September 14 but Zuckerberg has revealed it only yesterday in an interview with “The Today Show” and the magazine Bloomberg Businessweek. He wanted to make a big public announcement but does this news really matter?
A billion is a big and round number so it makes quite an impression but what is the substance in Facebook? For the social networks it’s certainly a good news that it keeps on growing after the many problems that followed its IPO. A few weeks ago the value of Facebook’s shares fell even below $20 and is now around $22, still far from the initial $38.
When it comes to Facebook you can never forget the continuing controversy over privacy. The social network has faced criticism and even investigations around the world for problems related to privacy. The options available in Facebook change over time but often the impression is that it makes one step up and two steps back.
One billion users are undoubtedly a lot but even from Facebook came the admission that about 83 million users are fake between duplicates, spammers, and so on. Those profiles are recognized as false but are we really sure that there aren’t many more?
It’s all too easy to criticize Facebook for those reasons and for the many people who now seem unable to live without this social network. Luckily, not everyone is like that and in this virtual world you can also find interesting groups and pages where you can exchange opinions with people who have their brain turned on.
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Facebook has a huge advantage over all competitors but a few weeks ago Google announced that its social network Google+ has passed the 400 million users threshold in just over a year after its opening. However, we must consider that today anyone who register to a Google service automatically opens a Google+ account because this social network is a central part of Google’s ecosystem. It’s still impressive to see how Google+ has grown and now only those who refuse to see may persist to call it a ghost town.
At least for the next future, Facebook will still be the first social network in the world with all its problems and contradictions. It still has room for growth but the challenge continues to be about turning its users into profits. If Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t make it, the enormous numbers related to Facebook users won’t matter.
