Facebook- an example of Web 2.0

All social networking sites, such as MySpace and Twitter, are examples of web 2.0 however by far the most popular of the these sites is Facebook. The site's statistics state that Facebook has over 500 million active users, with 50% of these users logging on to Facebook on any given day. The average user has 130 friends and people spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.

As mention previously, Facebook is a social networking site. It allows users to keep in touch with their friends in a number of ways (private messaging, wall posts or the instant messaging service Facebook chat) as well as uploading an unlimited amount of photos, share links and videos, create events and connect to many different groups or companies who have a Facebook page. Each user has their own 'profile', in which they can share as little or as much information about themselves as they want. They can then start connecting with their friends who use Facebook by sending them a 'friend request.' If the 'friend request' is approved by the recipient, this gives people access to each others profiles and means that they can communicate with each other. Users can also post 'statuses' which lets all their friends know something at the same time.

Facebook was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and co-founders Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin. They launched Facebook from their Harvard dorm room, although it was originally known as 'thefacebook.com.' In 2005 it became known as 'Facebook' and began to take shape into the website we know today, with the photos application being added and the news feed as well as the share application being added the following year. Facebook grew rapidly in popularity in 2009, with active users going from 150 million in January to 350 million in December. It is now widely acknowledged as the most popular social networking site, worldwide.

Facebook is an example of web 2.0 as it's main focus as a website is it's interactivity; users can edit the content of their profiles to suit them, share photos, videos and links with other users and communicate with each other in a number of different ways.

Facebook is used by people of all ages (the minimum sign up age being 13.) Whilst in it's early days, it was mainly used by people who had left school or university and were looking to reconnect with old friends, it now appeals to a much younger demographic. Individuals use it to communicate with friends; it is a useful tool for keeping in touch with friends who they might not see regularly anymore and also sharing news with all of your friends at once (providing that they all use Facebook!) Facebook is also used by companies or celebrities, who can set up pages which users can connect to. They can then use Facebook to advertise new products or in the case of celebrities, update their fans about what they are up to.