A new study says that social networking site Facebook now has nearly 27 million unique users, a rise of 90% in traffic since it went from a College fad to a global phenomenon. This makes it a slightly hotter business than the POLIS Director’s weblog, but will it last and what does it mean? A lot of people have tried Facebook since you were allowed to join without a student email address. A lot of them are sad old media gits like me who want to see what all the fuss is about. I quite like it and it has opened some networking lines that I might have missed through email, blogging and all the normal ways of communicating such as the phone and the pub. But it is not really the information engine that is driving my professional life. Nor will it replace either my season ticket at Upton Park or my regular round of dinner parties and children’s parties as my social life. I also wonder if it may suffer in quality because the very exclusivity that it enjoyed before has now been lost. I am sure Facebook don’t care. As a business model, nearly 30 million users can’t be wrong. But as a model of of how social networking communication may sweep aside conventional journalism? well, let’s wait and see – and enjoy.
Charlie Beckett
July 8th, 2007
Off its Facebook
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
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