Evolution of Facebook

On Friday the movie The Social Network was released into theaters.  I haven't seen the movie yet, but seeing all the promotion for the movies has forced me to take a trip down memory lane.  Facebook was launched in 2005, I remember this clearly.  When it first launched it was for college students only.  There was a lot of buzz about Facebook when it first started.  I remember asking what is Facebook and being told that it was like Myspace, but better.  The word of Facebook spread from one campus to another through friends who had one.  There were a couple of requirements as well.  One, you had to have a school email and two, your school had to have a network created by the site on it. 


It was my freshman year of college when Facebook launched.  Our school was not one of the networks available at the beginning.  So we sent messages to Facebook and waited patiently to see if our network would be added.  The day that my school was added it was all the buzz in the dorms and on campus.  I think the majority of the people living on campus opened an account that day.  The adding of my school to Facebook was all over Myspace.  Whether or not it was better at the time, I don't know.  But I sure thought it was better.  Perhaps it was the exclusivity that was involved with having a Facebook.  The fact that not just anyone could have one at the time.  It was much simpler than Myspace and was much simpler when it first started.  I remember when it was basically just a profile page where you could leave comments on your friends pages, post pictures, and put what you were doing (the line was "Brittany is....").  The coolest thing was wall-to-wall at the time.  Remember wondering what the purpose of a poke was?  I still don't know the answer to that one. 

It didn't take long for Facebook to become the next big thing.  Students were more than willing to abandon their Myspace, opting to use Facebook instead.  Slowly Facebook changed and I still haven't decided if it is for the better or worst.  I remember when they introduced the "news feed" or stalker page.  This page has it's pros and cons.  Facebook is now opened to everyone.  It is a very different Facebook from when it first launched.  It has pages, applications, links and all this other stuff that you can customize.  One thing has remained the same through all of this and I'm sure will never change and that is the basic white background.  It defines the network.  The popularity of social network sites come and go.  Remember open journal, xanga, myspace?  What has become of them?  We will have to wait and see how long Facebook lasts.  Could Twitter take over?  Only time will tell how things will turn out.  Who knows there could be a new social network site in the making.