Social Media Sites Creating a Smaller World for Businesses

According to an article in the The New York Times 3-28-09, Facebook will register its 200,000,000th user this week. Taking into account that just eight months ago Facebook celebrated their 100,000,000th user, the growth is staggering.

I wonder if Mike Zuckerberg, Facebook's 24 year old CEO, even has time to consider the ramifications of such a rapidly growing social media site? With a million new users every day from all over the globe, what will Facebook look like five years from now?

With online translating tools, the decline of language barriers, and the speed of information exchange online, the biblical symbol of the “Tower of Babel” seems to be melting away.

As more people connect in cross-continental romance, idea exchanges, and commerce online, I don’t think anyone can predict the full extent of globalization we’ll experience over the next decade.

Facebook has a goal of being used by everyone in the world to share information seamlessly. While 200 million out of 6 billion is a tiny number, it will be interesting to see where the number of Facebook users is at another eight months from now.

Whether it is Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or a new Google application – I think one thing is certain; companies that have been watching from the social media sidelines need to dive in now to compete effectively.

One of the blogs I’ve been reading lately is Jaffe Juice; if you are looking for a great idea exchange about conversational marketing, I highly recommend checking it out.

Time to go update my Facebook status. . .