Facebook Reaches The 500 Million Mark

On Wednesday, the king of the social networking battle, Facebook announced that it had reached the milestone of having 500million members on its site, just six years after it was set-up in a University room.  This means that nearly 10% of the worldwide population have Facebook available to them.  Last January, it still had only 150million members, so it has had a massive increase in the last eighteen months.  This is despite the rise to the fore of Twitter, though the almost complete dismantlement of Bebo and MySpace must have helped Facebook’s healthy figures.

The inventor of Facebook back in February 2004, Mark Zuckerburg believes that Facebook will have one billion users worldwide within the next five years.  Despite increasing concerns about the publication of personal information and complaints from some over the lack of privacy settings, Facebook’s popularity continues to soar.  The advanced competition continues to give Facebook many more challenges to overcome in the future.  Its delay in placing a child panic button on the site has received a lot of criticism, but that still seems not to be putting people off signing up for the fun features Facebook provides, such as Farmville, SuperPoke, Social Interview and Facebook Chat. 

Recent figures also have come out; suggest that Facebook is now getting more web visits on a daily basis, than the No.1 search provider, Google.  This could provide a major headache for advertisers looking to sell their products, now that Google is being outdone at its own game.  There is continued talk that Google are planning to break onto the social networking craze, though they refuse to comment on such frenzied speculation.    

Despite some who have their fears, Facebook continues to rule the networking area in the world and it is going to have to take something really special to knock it off its perch as top of the class.

Apple Admits Faults With The New I-Phone - Is It A Costly Error?

Yesterday, software giant Apple – home to such hi-tech computer programmes such as Final Cut Pro and Garage Band admitted that there was a problem with the latest version of its iPhone.    

The iPhone, which is the 4^th version of its product, has a major technical bug, which means it incorrectly display how much signal strength it receives.  On its website, Apple apologised to customers with this following statement:

“We were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of single strength to display is totally wrong.”  “Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays two more bars than it should for a given signal strength.”

Although this may explain the problem, it isn’t the most convincing apology I have ever heard, and it could well be a costly error for Apple, especially with competition rivals such as Nokia and Google already taking the opportunity to rub salt into their wounds, by giving demonstrations in shops how to hold a phone!  Apple has confirmed that they are working on a software fix, and it will be available in “a few weeks.”  However, despite the update, which will use a new formula for calculating signal strength, many customers are angered by this flaw, and will be frustrated by the amount of time this may take for the problem to be fixed.  Earlier iPhones apparently have similar problems, and those owners will also have access to a software update.

Complaints have been widespread as expected, and Apple is now under increasing pressure.  By the time the error may have been fixed, many may have ditched Apple for a phone, that they might be able to trust more.  It isn’t the first time Apple has had issues with software, with I-Tunes 8 having suffered several problems when updating this software back in the summer of 2008.  Many laptops and computers went down with viruses and technical bugs following this issue.  Despite having sold 1.7million iPhone IV in the first three days it has been in stores, they could be facing more problems that they initially expected.  This could well turn out to be a very costly error. 

Can Google Break The Domination?

This blog was first published on February 12th at http://happydude88.livejournal.com/

         

On Wednesday, Google launched its new social networking service, in a bid to break the domination of Facebook and Twitter.

Google Buzz will allow users to share personal updates, videos and photos and anyone who has a Google Mail account has already been automatically signed up to the website. However, can Google break the domination that Facebook and Twitter have enjoyed of recent times?

Last week, Facebook celebrated its 6th birthday and announced that it has over 400million users, a staggering statistic from when it took off in February 2004 and everyone said it would be a horrific flop. In the last 18 months, Twitter has joined in by becoming a hotbed for celebrities to tweet messages on their whereabouts to obsessive fans.

Honestly, I can’t see how Google is going to be able to keep up with these two powerhouses. Both Bebo and MySpace have basically been seen off by Twitter and Facebook and as far as I’m concerned, these two social networking sites were in a far stronger position than what Google Buzz is. I would actually say that it’s a desperate move by Google, in an effort to keep some of its consumers satisfied. Facebook has certainly raised its concerns over whether this attempt will be a success and have retaliated, by updating its messaging service and giving everyone an easier-to-use homepage.

I think Google Buzz is another shortcut version of social networking and I can see the idea fizzling out within months. It will have to take something to overcome the Facebook/Twitter craze and this isn’t it. Buzz basically does exactly the same Facebook does – only maybe slightly easier. However, with less information and applications around, then what benefit is it going to be? Possibly, to people who haven’t decided that social networking is for them yet, but I do urge people not to ditch Twitter or Facebook or Buzz, otherwise you would be making a mistake. Despite being the most visited website, thanks to its outstanding search engine, and with one of the fastest web browsers around today, I think this is going to be, strategically a gamble for Google that isn’t going to work. The Facebook/Twitter domination will be around for some time to come.