F_______K

Today’s TOI: Facebook net worth valued around $50 billion; Total number of active users above 500 million. What is this company up to! Such a phenomenal growth in so less time. Rest of the statistics is also simply miraculous, but why do people spend so much time on Facebook?

After a lot of thinking I came up with a weird conclusion, but I am kind of sure that, this is one of the strong reasons for people end up being on facebook. There are so many formulas to make money but there is no formula to fame. Facebook give us that small platform with an unimaginable reach; you can self publish yourself in whatever way you want. Isn’t it true that we all want to see our self on Page 3, someday? We all want to be famous. Facebook gives us this freedom at a very low cost, a parallel example I can give is our television, cheapest way of entertainment – you can view entire globe sitting in your drawing room.

Facebook has totally lived up to its name, I assume, that 50% of its users login daily just to see new picture updates. They are interested in knowing what is happening in others life. Flip side is 80% of the facebook projection is not 100% true. Anyways, who cares about it, its all so much of fun?

Online social networking era started by MySpace and Orkut, and now being carried forward by Facebook. Difference Facebook has made is today Dad & Mom, Uncle & Aunt, teachers are your friends. You come to know about your close friend’s real status on FB status update. The medium is so interactive and fast that most of the bloggers have moved to FB as they get instant attention to their one-liners and breaking write-ups. People who use to spend hours reading books after work are now busy reading others status and comments. I recently, read an online article - A 20year old employee in Canada lost sick leave benefits from her insurer because her Facebook page showed “cheerful” photos while she was on paid sick leave for depression. Wow! What a practical usage of FB.

And it all started with - In 2003, Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg created Facemash, where he placed photos of undergraduates side by side so viewers could rank which one was “hotter.” Today, it has changed the way people live; in-fact it’s a life style, it is oxygen for millions of people. I’m afraid we will live our lives through Facebook, for Facebook & with Facebook.

Last but not the least Mark Zuckerberg has become world's youngest billionaire (net worth $1.5 billion) and we an integral part of the 500 million active users.