Facebook: Why so popular?

Since this terms brief is to design a social networking site I thought that it would be a good idea to look into why facebook is such a popular site. Another point for why I have chosen to analyse this site is because a big population of the user on facebook are or were students, maybe this will give me an insight to what the student population are looking for.

On first impressions I found the design of the site a bit bland however on looking at the site as a whole I feel that the designers have been limited to a very minimal layout due to the vast amount of information that facebook outputs.

What I noticed before I even logged on was how simple new users can register onto facebook. All they have to do is enter there name, email, paswword, sex and DOB and your signed up; this can be more appealing to people because its quick and simple. A question that always goes through my mind is why do people join facebook?

I asked a few people on their opinions of this question and I got a mixture of answers which are all relatively true. The main reason why people like to go on facebook is because of the curiosity of what other people i.e. what friends are doing. Having the option if being able to see what your friends are doing via photos and 'wall posts' intrigues the majority of the users (including me); facebook is like a portal into other peoples worlds.

A good application that I have noticed to be very popular is the 'Events'applications. Through talking to a number of different people I realised that a large amount of people create events inviting a vast amount of people all in just a few clicks. I feel that this is a good application because it has a good cause, I have realised that over the past few years as facebook got more popular more applications were added that really there was no need for.

An example of a bad application on facebook is the 'superpoke' I am still unsure about what it does but from asking a few people I think it gives the user the option to give one of their friends a virtual hug, kiss etc in my opinion I feel that it is a pointless application; maybe they are trying to create smaller social networking groups within facebook however hearing different users responses to this they are not popular and get more negative feedback rather then positive.

A major problem that I noticed getting bigger is identity theft. Users give out information that can enable people to steal their identities, information such as your name, where you live, birthdays, place of study etc are all vitual information and when you look at facebook as a whole this site is the perfect place to do this. Even though that user has many option with their own profile i.e. keep it private and accept or decline people they want as friends, it is still very easy for hackers to get this information.

Overall I feel facebook has its good and bad points. It is a great way to keep in contact with friends wherever they are however I feel that it has expanded so much that it is not just a social networking site anymore, with compnaies buying shares into the site it is now turning more into a advetising site and becoming more dangerous for identity theft.

So when I ask that question why so popular? It mainly comes down to people mainly curious of other peoples lives however as facebook continues to grow and users log on more and more it makes me think how dependent are we on this site? Every time I am in a computer room I look around and see at least two people using facebook.

Facebook is a way of life for people now and I cannot imagine not having it in todays world.