Facebook - Social Media That Connected The Internet And The World

You probably would have noticed, during the 2000s, the social media platform with the most user-friendly interface is Facebook. It was so simple yet so likable.

Post a profile pic, add a few friends, start a few status posts, and there you go. There is your online identity, set up in just a few minutes.

It was also one of a few platforms that had a way to showcase your own photos, but obviously better. It’s like sharing with the world the amazing things that you see in your life.

Over the years, not only FB did not die like other social media platforms in its time, but it thrived more than its competitors.

Friendster and MySpace are gone for good, yet memories on FB will always be there.

When You Wanted to See How Your Friends Been Doing

Facebook was one of the earliest forms of ‘meeting’ your friends online. It is like if you want to check out how your friend’s been without going out of the house, you could check on their profile picture and status updates. And start chatting on that status.

Never has it been so convenient especially when you live in a country where your nearest friend’s home is actually a 30-mins drive away.

Sooner or later, you’ll get addicted to it.

Discovering A Whole New World of Friends

Before Facebook, you only knew a bunch of friends confined to the real-life social circle you are in. Geographical constraint might be the limiting factor that you will only know so many friends in your entire life.

Facebook’s ‘add friend’ button widened that circle to infinity.

From here, you get to know people from other classes, nearby community, attractive people that your existing friends might know, and so much more.

If you’re social enough, from there on you’ll get to expand your social circle like the speed of The Flash.

Facebook, in the early days, is such an innovation when the internet could only do so much in the 2000s. Who knew that you could meet new people outside of text-based software like MSN Messenger back then?

Facebook Is Also About Connections Through Messaging

As Facebook endured through the years, subscribers increased exponentially. Another form of Facebook emerged, in the shape of Facebook Messenger.

It is essentially the need for constant personal interactions on the platform that led to Facebook Messenger being created.

As regular users of Facebook, we would also be accustomed to constantly pinging our friend list for messaging. Such to and from messages are the earliest form of Facebook having a chat function.

This function is essential, especially trying to catch up with friend profiles that we haven’t seen for a long time in real life. One pop-up notification and we will start re-connecting with long-lost friends again.

Timeline – The Feed Featuring Posts from Person or Pages You Care About

As Facebook grows, your network of friends grew too. One of the ways to catch up with everyone’s status updates is Timeline.

The feed that shows all the latest post and status from everyone, from events to people you care about.

Place a like, reply to a status, or keep on scrolling down. All the interactivity you wanted, all made possible inside this feed of updates.

The Unexpected Reminder of Special Events

On certain occasions Facebook can be as effective as a calendar reminder is designed to be.

For example, whenever there is an event that you are supposed to pay attention to, whenever you log in to FB, the notification will appear close to the event timing.

And who could forget about Birthdays? FB never misses a beat on reminding me of who’s birthday is on which date, based on my friend list.

FB as social media is definitely more exciting and entertaining than a plain calendar. With social media like Facebook, I do actually pay attention to such reminders when I am on the platform.

Facebook Has the Widest Outreach for Organizing Events

Whenever you have an event or occasion to hold, doing your announcements on FB spreads the furthest.

First of all, you already have a tight-knit community that you have formed in real-life, and anyone in it who knows of the event info can then spread the message further across their own network. RSVP or no, you’ll instantly get the info of who’s coming and who’s not in your Facebook group.

Second, when done right, your organization can be discoverable by potential participants when they are interested in certain events. These people may not know any of the members of the club, but when it finally appears under their search radar, you will have gained some new following and participants.

These are existing, real people, searching for real events on the platform. How many platforms can do this as genuine and as fast as Facebook. Connecting with people, or interacting with events online, can never be as real an experience as Facebook.

Closing thoughts

FB coined the term ‘Social Media’, and it was never behind on innovation. Apps like Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and the like are just tiny snippets of what social media is. Some are photo-based, some are video-based, and some are text-based, and so on.

IMHO nothing's more complete than Facebook as social media.

Facebook did it in the beginning, and it now has them all.

May Facebook prosper for the long term and in being so, my polaroid memories will live on forever on the web.