Facebook's growth continues

On Monday, March 24 at Centennial’s Centre for Creative Communications we had Elmer Sotto, from Facebook Canada come and speak. It was an excellent talk with some interesting insights into Facebook, including:

Facebook is growing at an explosive rate, partially because it's leveraging its international user base. Facebook is currently at 400 million active users worldwide, with especially rapid growth in nations such as the Philippines and, before they blocked it, Iran and Iraq. It has 100 million mobile users and, with an average monthly use of 278 minutes, it has officially bumped Google from the number one spot of most engaging website.

According to Elmer, part of the reason for this explosive international growth is because Facebook is available in over 70 languages. To insure that translations match the natural feel of a language, international Facebook users handle the translations and vote on words that will be used. I think this is a good move by Facebook because it’s a way to directly engage their user base. Also, because the users are adding value to something they use, they become that much more invested in and loyal to Facebook. Plus, who wouldn’t love to say that they helped engineer Facebook’s Pirate-language version?

Facebook is a powerful platform that's not only changing the way we interact, but the way news is delivered to us. Elmer cited a few examples of how news delivery is changing, including the fact that the Oscar Red Carpet had a livestream and that Sarah Palin announced her resignation via Facebook. I find it interesting to see how social media is breaking down the barriers between news consumers and, in some cases, news makers. While this process, such as the Sarah Palin announcement, may seem to make traditional news channels irrelevant, they themselves are also using Facebook. It will be interesting to see if the ultimately end up competing with or complementing each other.

It’s not your imagination - Farmville really is everywhere. Elmer told a memorable anecdote about a friend who went to Indonesia and met a farmer. When the farmer realized that the individual worked at Facebook, the farmer spoke enthusiastically about his love of Farmville. So there you have it – this game is so addictive that even real farmers can’t resist it.