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Digital Marketing Agency India |
Digital Marketing Agency India: Glittery hats and party poppers at the ready, this week the galaxy-famous social network turned twelve.
For most of us it seems
like only yesterday that we first submitted our deeds through the famous blue
and white facade; just a name, date of birth and email and we could stay in
touch with friends past and present at the click of a mouse.
Facebook has grown, gaining
strength far faster than your average teenager and making considerably more
friends in the process - 1.5bn at last count. And last quarter, while most
12-year-olds earned £10-per-week for a vaguely legal paper-round, Mark
Zuckerberg’s baby amassed a whopping $5.4bn.
Where did it all go right?
While the cool kids were all over MySpace and Bebo, the ugly duckling of
Facebook elbowed its way through and gobbled up the punters. It spread its
wings, took to the skies and flew to brave new social horizons.
Who was I to resist? Back
in 2005, what King Zuck was offering was just a bit cooler than those other
platforms. Facebook was the understated, grown up development from online
predecessors; no stars, love-hearts or top-ten lists, just friends, a message
board and easy-to-use sharing format, all presented in harmless plain blue and
white. We ‘liked’ what we saw.
But this teenage Face is
not without its blemishes. Regulation and monitoring haven't been able to stem
the lightning fast perpetuation of rumor, scandal and false report. Darker
still, anonymity has allowed all manner of bullying and predatory demons to
sneak in through the door.
More superficially,
layouts, news-feeds and various structures have changed shape, much to the ire
of users who like things to stay exactly as they are.
My relationship with my favorite
social media platform has been anything but smooth. I pulled my hair out trying
to amend privacy settings, after coming across a photo of myself looking
‘tired’ at a friend’s birthday party. For years I suffered images of what
people were having for tea, 'cute' babies covered in their own tea, mates
dressed for a night on the tiles posting bathroom selfies with the toilet bowl
haunting the background. Don't get me started on sonographs of fetuses as
profile pictures. Then I stumbled across the 'hide this person' button, and
most has been forgiven. Congratulations Facebook, you win.
Whatever its shortcomings,
the social media giant has continued to win in millions of minds around the
world, giving Facebook the keys to an advertising goldmine of information.
Shrewd acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp have provided fresh data veins
that are a billion users strong. And through it all we've stayed faithful and
engaged, simply because Facebook is remarkably good at moving with the times.
As the platform embarks
upon its thirteenth year to digital heaven, it can reflect on twelve years that
have changed the world as we know it. But what next? Facebook’s Atlas will
allow firms to communicate using real-world and digital data, while every-day
users can surely count on their favorite platform continuing to accommodate
every fad and fashion of the digital era.
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Digital Media Agency India |