29 July 2010
FaceBook: The good, the bad and shockingly embarrassing
Posted by dan123 under: Uncategorized .
It is interesting to think that Facebook was launched in February 2004 and has grown to over 500 million members, it definitely is an incredible accomplishment. It is a feat of epic proportions and a remarkable success story which also demonstrates the growing recognition of social networking.
There are individuals whose occupation is now dependant of Facebook. There’s a constant battle between independent application developers and development companies such as Zynga, and other web design company type businesses around the planet.
Zynga is a brilliant case in point of success with Facebook. After being in business for nearly three years the company has an annual income of over $100 million dollars and are responsible for some of the most popular applications on Facebook, specifically Farmville and Mafia Wars.
However, within the interest of fairness and objectivity, an individual could argue that Facebook is a bit like Marmite. You either love it or hate it. My fourteen year old niece for instance will happily spend hour after hour on Facebook, in contrast I will invest possibly five to ten minutes on it each day or two.
How many times have you been out with close friends, maybe you had a few dozen too many alcohol based drinks and made a total fool of yourself, which would likely have been alright pre 2004 because even if your friends did have cameras and took pictures there was basically no site which could humiliate you in the same way Facebook can.
The impact of Facebook has also spread to firms and can now influence employment opportunities. It is widely documented that firms will try and locate your profile on Facebook, just to observe if there exists something you possibly forgot to bring up. You have the ability to share with the world positively everything that you like and dislike, your favourite music, foods, films and your political and religious affiliations.
For some, the volume of information and facts has gone too far. It’s commonly claimed that knowledge is power, and if that’s the circumstance Facebook is all powerful because they have knowledge of around half a billion users. Some may question what possible problems might come from all this understanding?
Well a whole lot really. Firstly, businesses will go to great lengths to gather data on consumers and Facebook is a giant and rich data bank of buyers. Since 2004 advertising has become increasingly important for the firm because it generates income. With Facebook companies can setup highly targeted adverts, so one may argue that at least users won’t be inundated with random advertising. Throug such localization as web design London Facebook is sending out a strong message of willingness to develop their service which is certainly encouraging.
There’s also a considerably darker side to personal data and information which was shown during World War 2. In Germany and in other regions in Europe, as the Nazis grasp extended to Poland, France, Holland and Belgium the census’ of these countries were used to hunt down Jews and various other political enemies. Without a doubt this is a rather extreme example with the dark side of data but it did happen and does show how information could be utilized in the worst type of possible way.
