This is a great article from CNN. Check out "the race to the mass market" graph on the right; it compares the amount of time it has taken Facebook, iPods, cellphones and other technologies to reach 150 million users.http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/16/technology/hempel_facebook.fortune/index.htm
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This article also on Facebook, “Primates on Facebook- Even online, the neocortex is the limit” (http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13176775) offers an anthropological point of view on social networks.
ReplyDeleteWhat shows is “the cognitive power of the brain limits the size of the social network that an individual of any given species can develop”, usually around 150 and Facebook statistics tend to reinforce this research founding (the average is 120). What Facebook is also reinforcing is that a person has a wider network and a “social core”. An individual, no matter that s/he has 120/500+virtual friends, s/he will interact more frequently with the same circle of friends. The article’s conclusion is that… “Humans may be advertising themselves more efficiently. But they still have the same small circles of intimacy as ever.”