Virtual mystery gift from Facebook
05 Feb 2009
Social networking site Facebook is giving its 150 million users a mystery virtual gift to celebrate its fifth birthday yesterday. The gift shop's presents usually range from cuddly bears to a pint of beer and from champagne to a four-leaf clover.
Founder Mark Zuckerberg said, "In the spirit of celebrating connections between people, we encourage you to use this gift to give thanks to [those] you are connected with on Facebook."
In the battle for online friends, Facebook is now the world leader having surpassed previous No.1 MySpace recently.
In a blog post, Zuckerberg acknowledged the company's work in achieving its place as the biggest social network to date. "Building and moving quickly for five years hasn't been easy, and we aren't finished. As we celebrate Facebook's 5th birthday, we continue to work hard to evolve Facebook and make it as simple as possible to communicate with and understand the people and entities that matter to you," he wrote.
In the blog he has also taken a trip down memory lane and shared old images of how the site has changed since it was launched in 2004. "Before, most people wouldn't consider sharing their real identities online. But Facebook has offered a safe and trusted environment for people to interact online, which has made millions of people comfortable expressing more about themselves,'' he added.
Everyday more than 15 million users update their status to tell their friends what they are doing. They also show off photographs, upload videos, chat, make friends, meet old ones, join causes, groups, have fun and throw virtual sheep at one another.
Although extremely popular, with a 150 million user base, Facebook has yet to commercially exploit its popularity. In a downturn, that will seem more important than ever, as investors - who have put $516 million into the firm so far - begin to get anxious and want to start seeing at least the possibility of seeing a return on some of that investment.
Facebook has many challenges in the future: the battle against social networking fatigue, information overload, the migration of influential early adopters to more specialist networks like Twitter and the intensifying scrutiny of its plans to make money. Whether it celebrates its 10th birthday in five years time will depend o how it reacts to these challenges.
