The story of Facebook, as we all know by now, is about Mark Zuckerberg and his two roomates at Harvard College wanting to create a networking site to keep in touch with friends. This network became avaliable to the public in September 2006, and the rest, as they say, is history.
In Singapore today, there are 2,280,800 people with Facebook accounts. That is a staggering 48.52% (!) of the population. While Facebook wasn't the first to come up with a networking site (Friendster and MySpace came earlier), it quickly became the market leader due to its easy-to-use interface and countless online applications. On facebook, you can take pictures at a friend's party and have it uploaded immediately for the world to see. Tell your friends what you had for lunch. Ask them out for drinks. Play hugely popular online games.
The internet changed the world forever. In my opinion, Facebook took it to another level. With the explosion of its popularity, media outlets have jumped on the Facebook bandwagon. While these outlets already have websites of their own, for example, CNN and BBC, they are extending their reach to even more viewers, just by being on Facebook. On Cnn's facebook page, its writers churn out breaking news by the minute. Readers can have access to these news on their mobile phones, at any time anywhere. There are links to its news anchors, pictures and videos. You wouldn't imagine that 5 years ago.
It is an even more critical issue with traditional print. The problem with it is just thats its news, being reported and printed overnight, is already 'late', compared to news online. To solve that problem, The Straits Times (Singapore) has successfully integrated itself into a multiple platform news agency. On Facebook, the Straits Times page posts selected general news. If you click on the links, it redirects you to its website, where you can get more news. To get a full version of the paper however, you need to subscribe to an online edition. This move reduces the impact on the timeliness of the Straits Times. By using Facebook to publish news is a great way for news outlets to make use of the technology avaliable to extend its reach and maintain its relevance.
Image source: The Facebook Phenomenon
References: Singapore Facebook Stastics, 2011, Social Bakers, viewed 19 January 2011, http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/singapore
