Phasebook

Facebook has become an important communication medium today. Not just for people to remain in touch with their friends, friends of friends, relatives, colleagues, acquaintances, but also for artists, companies and brands to connect with their fans, employees, customers. Of a total world population of 6.8 billion people, 500 million plus are on Facebook. That is roughly 7.5% of the world population. Or 25% of 2 billion odd Internet users. If Facebook were a country, and its users its citizens, then it would be the 3rd largest country in the world today, with global citizenship from all over the world.

It is my guess that the rate of Facebook’s growth in terms of number of users is greater than the rate at which Internet penetration is growing. If this is true, then it is not difficult to infer that in a few years from now, virtually every Internet user on the planet will have a Facebook account. And as Internet penetration also grows, then in a decade or two, well within in our lifetime, possibly every human on earth could be on Facebook.

That, now, is a big deal. Not just for Facebook shareholders, but for humanity in general. That would make Facebook as a platform the most powerful communication broadcast medium in the world, and Facebook as a company, with the whole world audience available to them, could play a major role in influencing world opinion. We would move one step closer to being an advanced civilization, which is characterized by one central government, one communication platform, one unified world.

Each decade brings about half a new generation with a new idea fueled by entrepreneurship, and sometimes by government (Internet itself) that leads to phenomenal innovations and inventions. Microsoft ruled the market in the nineties as it developed and succesfully marketed Windows operating systems and Office applications. Google became the window (pun unintended) to the Internet as it took off in late nineties and continued to be the darling of the tech town until recently. The spotlight is now also shared by Apple with its iPhone, iPad line of products, and of course by Facebook with the buzz (pun intended, this time) it created. Remains to be seen how long this phase of Facebook’s glorious days will last before it is overshadowed by another invention by another entrepreneur in another generation.