Is Facebook Social Media’s Thoroughbred?

In the past couple of weeks I have started to invest a little bit more of my online time in the social media site Facebook. The reason, for my recent affection towards Facebook, was not one of sudden aduration but more to do with news items of which I had read. I’m going to list 3 reasons why I believe that Facebook is taking itself more seriously and why my attention has moved up the gears into believing that Facebook is about to take on the disposition that normally is only meted out to a thoroughbred racehorse.

Facebook announce Vanity URL’s
What was annoying about Facebook previously was the way they displayed a users profile url. It was querystring mode, which basically means it was a variable equal to a number id in their vast database. Someone, must have had a word in the right ear at Facebook because they now have search friendly url’s in place, where a user can stipulate what they want as their own unique url.

Example : My former profile was something like : http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=5544332211 which can now be accessed as http://www.facebook.com/paulsteven70 you can grab your own unique username by signing into Facebook and going to this page : http://www.facebook.com/username/

Facebook Going Public With User Updates
This one has caused quite a stir, because many Facebook users are stating that the reason they signed onto Facebook was its strict privacy settings in only allowing certain people to see their status updates. Well this is still the case you can set who gets to see your updates pretty simply. Another thing I’ll add is that if you don’t want people reading your updates then don’t post them online. That’s what email and messenger services are there for!

Having being online and posting my thoughts (see rants) for nearly a decade and a massive fan of Twitter into the bargain, then I can conclude I have made a few slip-ups along the way, but such is life, and if your way too paranoid about posting your thoughts then perhaps you better try buying a diary and placing them in there. Quite frankly, I’m glad Facebook have allowed for this feature, it sets them apart from that teenage angst site Bebo (which I detest to the max).

Facebook’s Advertising Has Tripled in the Last Year
If there is any indication as to the success of a website it is their ad revenue. When you read that Facebook have tripled their ad sales in less than a year, that’s an impressive claim, especially in the financial turmoil The World has been suffering in for nigh on a year now. ( source ).

According to Facebook’s director of product marketing, Tim Kendall, it’s all about diversity … when your tripling your ad revenue, when all around, including Google Inc, is experiencing declining online ad growth, you must be doing something – very, very right. Also consider this, a Russian company paid $200million last month for a less than 2 percent share of Facebook, instantly valuing the company at around $10 billion. Not bad, huh?

How Facebook is battering all and nearest rivals inc. Google, according to Google Trends…

My advice to anyone, individual, group, organisation or business brand is to crank up your Facebook activity, because this is one social media platform that looks like the ultimate pedigree.