News Report #2

"Facebook turns 5 -- but can it survive?"
By Simon Hooper
Wednesay February 4, 2009
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/04/facebook.anniversary/index.html?eref=rss_tech

This article from CNN marks the five year anniversary of the social networking site Facebook, created by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004. This site has revolutionized the way people interact with each other, and it has given millions of people of all ages a platform to voice their opinions on the internet. Although the article notes that Zuckerberg is worth over a billion dollars for creating Facebook, that number could be decreasing. With the economy in a recession at the moment, the market for online advertising (Facebook’s number one revenue source) has taken a major hit. Many businesses are cutting back advertising costs, causing sites like Facebook to become much less profitable then they once were. Still, Facebook continues to be a monumental online site for this generation and its popularity will keep it around for a while into the future.

I started using Facebook when I first got to college, about four years ago. The site was much different then than it is now; it was much simpler and not nearly as many people used it. Back then, it was limited only to college students and there were no “statuses” or things like that. When I think about how much Facebook has changed and improved over the past five years, I see no reason why they can’t come up with new and interesting features to enhance the site and make it last another five years. I will admit I don’t use Facebook nearly as much now as I used to, but I still think it is a great tool to keep in touch with friends back home that I haven’t seen in a while. I don’t think I will ever go away from Facebook or delete my account like some of my friends have. I see it now as a tremendous stage for young people to interact with their peers or even people older, in a way that did not exist five years ago.