Facebook hit 100 million users this week, read the announcement. I switched over from MySpace over a year ago and still believe that Facebook has created a better addiction than it's largest competitor. It took Facebook something like 4-5 years to reach 100 million, which was longer than it took MySpace, but I think Facebook has a much tidier and simplistic formula.I created a reunion group on Facebook for my high school graduating class a few weeks ago. At the time we had maybe 15 of our class on Facebook. We now have almost 70 from the class of 1989 in the group, plus another 30-40 from the years around 1989 that have come to join us.
Their adoption is purely because of the simplicity by which you can jump on Facebook, add photos, join discussions, search/reconnect and get the constant newsfeed about what your friends are doing.
Personally, I think we are directly responsible for the 100 millionth member. Do we get a candy bar or something? A T-shirt?
Props to the stay-at-home moms and the teachers (who were off during the summer) for jumping on the phone and email to track down the names that kept popping up as lost. I guess it also helps to have a bailbondsman in the graduating class.
Back to Facebook... they also claim that 20% of their user base has "visited" the redesigned site. I'm one of the 20%, but I reverted back to the old site immediately. The new site gives me less info about my friends than the old site and, by golly, that's the glue! HELLO?
Facebook is trying to spin the 20% into a grand accomplishment, but I have a vocabulary and I can do simple math:
- 100,000,000 users x 20% = 20,000,000 visited the redesign.
- "Visited" does not mean adopted. Straw poll amongst my friends on Twitter yielded ZERO that adopted it, but let's give Facebook the benefit of the doubt and say...
- 50% of the 20% adopted the new look.
- 10,000,000 is a big number unless you have 100 million users.
- 10% of your users adopting your redesign is absolute crap. FAIL!
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