With over one billion active users, there is no denying that Facebook is the largest social network on the planet, but if you compared the web based experience today with the experience that actually first launched with Facebook back in 2004 then it would be barely recognizable. Like any popular site or service, Facebook has evolved over time to meet increasing demand and has added - and sometimes removed - features that they believe will be beneficial to users. It seems that the latest addition to the social network could come in the form of a threaded comments system that stands a good chance of causing chaos on profiles if it gets through the user testing stage.
Facebook have tonight taken the opportunity to push out an update to their universal iPhone, iPod touch and iPad mobile app, taking it to the version 5.1. The world's biggest social network have been on a relatively well-received mobile push recently with significant updates to their iOS and Android apps. This latest update on Apple's iOS platform brings some notable enhancements and serves to make the software a lot more social thanks to more powerful chatting and photo sharing features.
There has been a continual wave of speculation with regards to a purported "Facebook Phone" and the latest reports suggest it is very much real, operating under the codename HTC Opera UL.
Although Facebook's IPO may not have taken off as successfully as Mark Zuckerberg and his team would perhaps have liked, there's little doubting the work ethic of Facebook in 2012. The mobile app finally seems to have been taken care of, and among a continual stream of new features and performance enhancements, the News Feed now supports the use of emoticons in comments.
With the world's number one social network having "languished" on 900 million+ active users for a good while now, it was only a matter of time before Mark Zuckerberg's creation passed the landmark billion, and as revealed today by an official note, that impressive feat was surpassed last month. Having only reached 100 million monthly active users in 2008, the growth has been nothing short of incredible, and although the well-documented IPO earlier this year didn't pass without hiccup, the web's newest stock market company continues to go from strength to strength.
Since the much-publicized IPO earlier this year, Facebook has worked tirelessly to improve its range of products and, most notably, monetize the huge mobile reach it currently possesses. A large chunk of the social network’s 900+ million users login using their smartphones and tablets, but Mark Zuckerberg’s company has, as yet, failed to turn those numbers into cold, hard cash.
If Angry Birds is the iconic representation of mobile gaming of the modern day, then FarmVille has to epitomize the social gaming made possible by the likes of Facebook. Having witnessed grown men discussing their virtual farms in Starbucks, it's a tad comedic to see just how gripped many folk were by the title, and for those who've just finished weaning themselves from the original edition of FarmVille, you'll be pleased to know FarmVille 2 has just arrived!
After what seemed like an endless toil, Facebook finally put a decent app together for those frequenting the social networking site. Unfortunately for the Android users out there, Apple's iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users have once again gotten first dibs, but Facebook's Director of Mobile Engineering has assured those running Google's flagship OS that the company will be releasing an Android iteration in the near future.
Considering Facebook is the world’s largest social network and their mobile apps for iOS and Android are probably two of the most downloaded apps on their respective platforms, you would be forgiven for thinking that they provide an extremely positive user-experience, especially considering Facebook's own statistics show that an enormous percentage of their user-base regularly access their accounts through mobile devices. Unfortunately, the Facebook apps have been the center of a lot of criticism due to the internal decision to build the app primarily using HTML5 for cross-platform distribution.
Social networking sites have become such an integral part of our every day lives that I actually struggle to clearly remember a time when they weren't around. The need to be social has, and always will be, a part of our genetic make-up as human beings, but that has been accelerated to a whole new level thanks to the likes of Facebook and Twitter which allow us to easily connect and interact with people all over the globe. Facebook is by far the largest of the world’s online social portals, boasting over 900 million registered members, connecting people from all over the world together through common friends and interests.
