NOTV: In your face

I’ve spent my life on the fringe, avoiding the mainstream. If “they” said it was good, I didn’t like it. If I liked it, “they” didn’t. After all, who were “they” anyway? In mid-2007, I elected to sign up for a fringe website. The mainstream equivalent had been taken over by juveniles, spammers, and Flash animation. I abandoned MySpace and found Facebook, little suspecting that I would not be alone.

Like so many of you, I logged into Facebook last Tuesday and was greeted with the notice of a blog written by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg about pending changes to the organization and networking structure of the social networking site. Until I saw that notification, I didn’t even realize there was a “Facebook blog.”

Included in the text of the message was the impressive statement that “more than 350 million people around the world are using Facebook.” Given that, I can hardly boast having finally surpassed 200 Facebook friends. One has to wonder how the site grew to 350 million users in five years. Actually, one doesn’t have to wonder, because they have blogged about it. Up to a point.

September 15, 2009: “Facebook now serves 300 million people across the world.” For those who suck at math, that’s 50 million members in 75 days. More than 27k per hour! But wait, it gets better.

July 15, 2009: “250 million people are using Facebook to stay updated on what’s happening around them and share with the people in their lives.” That’s 50 million in 60 days. Over 100 million users within four and half months.

April 8, 2009: “We will welcome our 200 millionth active user to Facebook some time today.” Just as most Americans were preparing their taxes, Facebook had to brace itself as 150 million users stood ready to sign on over an eight month period.

February 17, 2009: “More than 175 million people use Facebook.” Check the math, but if I’ve calculated correctly, Facebook doubled in size within nine months. That’s the combined populations of France, Spain, Poland, and Saudi Arabia (yep… looked ‘em up).

August 26, 2008: “We hit a big milestone today — 100 million people around the world are now using Facebook.” At this point the numbers are, no doubt, starting to blur together, but don’t drop out on me now, because here is where the story picks up (and drops off).

Prior to August of ‘08, Facebook’s blog doesn’t keep track of the milestones. For more than four years, they weren’t publicizing the numbers. But those are the details that fascinate me. The blog contains information achieving 250 million users over the last 18 months, but the previous 100 million users over four years remain a mystery. Two prominent technology journals don’t seem to include the data in their histories of the site, and, because I knew someone else would check for me, not even Wikipedia has the info.

The incompleteness of the story is unusual, not because of the hole in the data, but because of the lack of a need for the hole. There is no reason for the numbers to be a mystery. There was no shortage of websites tracking other sites. What is missing is the moment it became mainstream. I seem to have found myself on a website now squarely placed in the world of popular culture, and I don’t know how that happened. I and 349,999,999 others routinely troll the site in search of friendship or romance or business contacts or just a little humor to help get through a day. The fringe has merged with the mainstream.

All of this is, I suppose, analogous to what makes the internet so different from other forms of interaction. Despite our beliefs, likes, or dislikes, we are all the same in the land of ones and zeroes. Unlike a vast number of websites out there, Facebook made money this year. It isn’t going anywhere. Which means it won’t be long before Mr. Zuckerberg claims another milestone, and more minorities merge with the mainstream.

How odd would it be if real life worked that way?

It doesn’t, does it?