Facebook Now Reaches More than Half of All Internet Users

Regardless of anyone's opinion on Facebook, this is an impressive feat!

Not really.
All social network sites are basically the same. The only reason people use facebook is that everyone else uses facebook.
It's simple network effects. Whichever social network site has the most users, will attract more users.

It makes me sad to think almost 20% of the world population is wasting ALL THIS TIME in a single social network, instead of doing something useful (like working, studying, exercising, etc) - happily handing data to advertisers and whoever wants to pay for all that information you put online for a few "likes".

Now think of how much people waste in the other social networks, video/humor sites and stuff... poor, poor humankind evolution.

Yes, but the fact that it was this one site that managed to come out on top is still impressive. There are thousands of search engines out there, yet when people want to find something, chances are they'll use Google. It's not a small undertaking to become a number one site.

Your argument is invalid. People don't use Google because "everyone else does", they do it because Google has been around for 16 years improving their search engine to become the VERY BEST in the world. Also, Google is useful.

And I'm a proud member of the other half.

Imagine when Facebook finally gets taken over by the next big social media site ...

What do you think will happen to all the millions of people's personal information? What do you think Facebook would do if they were going under, yet they had millions of dollars worth of personal information on people?

Just saying.

Being the best at anything is entirley subjective, the same arguements have raged on for years for nVidia vs ATI, Intel vs AMD, Microsoft Vs Apple, and the fanbois that shout the loudest claim the right to say theirs is the best.
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Yes, Google and Facebook are the biggest at what they do, let's just leave it at that, whether they are the best is a moot point because they are so synonymous with their particular field that people refer to them without thinking - even if Bing was 100 times better people would still "Google" it.

Evidently, not everyone lives in a yoghurt commercial like you

I've made hundreds of friends in and outside of my city that I may never have met if Facebook had never existed, and I'm very sure that I'd rather spoon feed advertisers my product preferences and political sentiments if they're actually going to offer me adverts based on relevant content, unlike half the s**t that arrives in my inbox every week.

hundreds of friends really ?? i think you abuse the word friend my friend

I don't use FB because of two reasons.

1) I'm not going to give my personal info to these sonsabitches.

2)I have enough real life friends.

You're incorrect. There is nobody on my Facebook friend list that I haven't met in person, face to face and there is nobody that I see less than a couple of times per year. Contrary to common belief, it's not actually rocket science to mix a healthy social life with a social networking website.




Bah! Get off my damn lawn you kids! Mumble grumble grumble mumble.

The thing with natural monopolies is, that i only takes a small advantage to get into this monopoly position and from then on it's easy to defend the monopoly position.

Look at Microsoft. Microsoft didn't even want to get into the OS business. They were almost forced into it because IBM couldn't get CP/M.
What made them get into a monopoly position was not a superior product, but the marketing strength of IBM and good business strategy.

You don't need to live in a yogurt commercial to live REAL life. I've made a couple buddies online too (not on FB), but I don't want to give away personal data FOREVER in exchange for "friends". Try hanging out for real, you'll meet more people and make more friends.

No, not true. What makes the point "moot" is that people use stuff for a myriad of purposes, which combine best with a single product. For example, designers will die defending their iMacs and gamers bash it mercilessly - and when they meet, they can't leave their points and thus we see the fanboi fights everyday.

With Google, I don't really see any other use but being redirected to other sites with relevant content - and Google is really the best at this, be it with their privacy intrusion or not.

"wasting their time" is highly subjective. Would watching TV, playing video games or even reading a book be a better use of their time? Even people who work 8 hours day, exercice each day, walk the dog, help the kid study, etc. have time for leisure. Who are you to judge how they choose to spend it?

This is NOT impressive. My wife has like 10 fake accounts for "farmtown" and I have 5 for web development reasons. I bet tons people have tons of fake accounts for all different reasons. Every marketing person on earth has about 5 Facebook accounts to separate their personal from professional. This is all a scam and will come to light one day.

Doing nothing to improve wealth, health (be it mind or body health) or knowledge = waste of time. Answering your question, I think it depends on what's the subject of the book/TV show. Video games are always waste of time unless you win money on it. Social networks serve to the only purpose of self-exposing.

PS: I'm expressing my opinion, who are you to judge it?

As already mentioned, I hang out regularly with all of my Facebook friends.

Facebook can be an excellent tool for breaking the ice with people that you've been introduced to that you might ordinarily never contact or meet again after that one bespoke occasion.

Moderation is key. Over-reliance on Facebook is just as ignorant as hating on it.

I wonder how many of those 845 million users are fake accounts? Back in the day when I had an account, I also created no less than 300 other accounts just so I could level up quickly in some of the games I played. Other people I know did the same... but alas, who has time anymore to waste on FB when I can interact with real people. I'm pretty sure I could create a script to post more creative and interesting things to say than 95% of the people on FB now.

Life is to short to spend on Facebook. Get a real life.

I'm expressing my opinion on your opinion. I also wonder what you're doing commenting on a tech forum while you should be working, training or meditating. Seems to me like your wasting your time.

"The public data also states that Facebook reaches 50.6 percent of all Internet users." Does this mean that 49.4% of internet users have never gone to facebook.com? I really hate statistics, they always seem to say one thing but could easily mean something else. Am I reading this one correctly?

Reading about tech is good for my knowledge, and I spend seconds commenting. No waste of time here.

A waste of time is a waste of time and a few seconds is still an amount of time and you just wasted them commenting not once or twice or even three times, but SIX times. You really should stop wasting your time commenting and while you are at it you can stop wasting your time telling us your opinion on what you consider a waste of time.

You know it's a good thing I don't consider commenting a waste of time cause if I did I would have wasted a lot of time there. But since I find commenting fun and fun keeps me happy and being happy is a HIGH priority for me I don't consider it a waste of time

Furthermore, I'd like to add that Facebook is not only about mirror self-shots and lolcats. The people I know (to avoid the word "friends") often post links to intelligent videos and articles that I might not have stumbled upon otherwise. I think it's a matter of who you hang out with, and it's your choice to follow what they post or not.

See you are presenting opinion as fact, you say it is the best but other people would say Bing is better, it only takes one person to do so and it is subjective
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It may be better for you, but you don't represent the opinion of the world, just agree that you like it and we will all be happy for you
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Oh, and Google is syonymous now not just because of being a search engine but because it is everywhere, Android, Maps, Earth, Streetview, Gmail, Youtube, Picassa, Chrome, GoogleTV - and those are just the most memorable - then almost every bit of freeware tries to bundle the toolbar
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So back to topic, Facebook, exactly the same, you may hate or think it is crap, but if someone in a crowded room says "social networking" the first word that pops into everybody head is Facebook, everytime - even though there are at least 13 other sites that have more than 100 million members - who has ever heard of Habbo? Twice as many members as Google+
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_ [...] g_websites

Facebook can absolutely impove wealth, health and knowledge.
You must have missed that FB is greatly used as an "information hub". Most businesses have a facebook page where they post the latest information of the proucts/services. That thing alone anwers your wealth (for companies or even single persons. An artist can also use facebook to promote himself).
When it comes to health it is the same thing. A lot of health professionals have facebook pages. Personal trainers answers directly to questions about specific subjects and so on.

You have to face it that facebook is another big information souirce just as youtube have become (with video tutorials, courses and so on)..

Yes, people can just use it to write about personal stuff in their lifes, but is that worse than passiveley watching soap operas on TV? I mean, at least a person has to express himself improving his writing skills and it is more social than just watching tv alone.

And even google can be used just for not health/weatlh/knowloedge related searches. As many other services on the internet.
With your reasoning you should just as well not use internet at all!

I'm not going to get in a big debate ... but I will add my 2 cents. "Social Media" is anything but what the name implies. Sitting in front of your computer talking with "friends" is anything but social. In fact, I think social media is actually having the opposite affect, and creating a bunch of anti-social, lazy, socially awkward kids (read: not everyone, that's not a blanket statement). You can argue all day about the positives about it, but at the end of the day it is replacing face-to-face conversations, getting outside, and real social interaction. This is really important, especially for younger kids.

I'm not saying it's all bad, but I really do worry for the younger generations. Also, you seem to be ignoring the fact that millions of people are divulging very personal information everyday on Facebook. Do you really trust Facebook with all that personal info? Read my comment above and think about it. If they were on the brink of going under, no doubt they would sell all this mined data to the highest bidder, regardless of ethics. And if a government agency came forward and demanded information, they would hand it over in a millisecond. FB may not be the antichrist, but let's not kid ourselves that it's all good either.

you cannot believe these numbers.. i have a friend who has 3 different facebook accounts, 2 of them he doesent log into anylonger, but i have several friends who play facebook games, and they made multiple accounts so they have more "in game friends" as many of the games say you need this number of friends to do (blank)"
so alot of users have multiple accounts,,
what about all the accounts that are advertising robots?
quite often i find some sexy stranger i dont know asking to be my friend..