4 Comments »The looming new year recently reminded me of something I read in June. It was a fact of human history with such a profound influence on the upcoming year that it may be the source of most of the changes of late and to come. For the first time ever, there will be more people in the world who live in cities than who don’t.
According to the United Nations Population Fund in June 2007, there are 3.3 billion people living in cities, and that number is expected to grow to 5 billion within 25 years.
Around the same time, Facebook saw unbelievable growth. Facebook had 12 million members in December 2006, and boasts around 60 million only a year later, ever climbing with an additional 250,000 new members daily and 65 billion monthly pageviews.
Proudly, my own city of Toronto is the second largest network with over one million members out of the roughly 2.5 million people living here.
There’s no doubt that Facebook has seen considerable growth in the past year, and that it will continue to. The question that hit me this morning, though, has the potential to flip my entire outlook on the world.
Did 2007 bring about the tipping point of Facebook, or urban human history as we know it? and.. what else will it mean for 2008?
I just realized…
First of all.. the toronto network now has 1.5 million people.
However… since everyone in the surrounding toronto area would likely select “toronto” as their network… it's more likely a representation of the Greater Toronto Area, which has a population of 5 million.
I think that perhaps the reasons that London and Toronto are so huge is that people around both countries are likely to select that network.
If anybody in Canada plans to work in the financial heart of the country, it's a good idea to select Toronto as the network. Also, most people in Canada know lots of people there.
So maybe the big fact isn't that toronto's the largest network… but instead that Canadians like to pretend they're from Toronto?
I just realized…
First of all.. the toronto network now has 1.5 million people.
However… since everyone in the surrounding toronto area would likely select “toronto” as their network… it’s more likely a representation of the Greater Toronto Area, which has a population of 5 million.
I think that perhaps the reasons that London and Toronto are so huge is that people around both countries are likely to select that network.
If anybody in Canada plans to work in the financial heart of the country, it’s a good idea to select Toronto as the network. Also, most people in Canada know lots of people there.
So maybe the big fact isn’t that toronto’s the largest network… but instead that Canadians like to pretend they’re from Toronto?
I wonder why Toronto experienced such huge growth, compared to most US cities. Wow!
I also wonder if this recent rash of negative facebook coverage will allow other niche social networks to grow more rapidly. For instance, Mahalo is about to launch a new twitter-delicious-mahalo mashup (although its just social bookmarking favorites–its not really delicious from what I saw). Hence, will it get more coverage now?
Jason is giving out beta-invites if you ask him via email
I think its jason@mahalo.com. His twitter account has the specifics.
I wonder why Toronto experienced such huge growth, compared to most US cities. Wow!
I also wonder if this recent rash of negative facebook coverage will allow other niche social networks to grow more rapidly. For instance, Mahalo is about to launch a new twitter-delicious-mahalo mashup (although its just social bookmarking favorites–its not really delicious from what I saw). Hence, will it get more coverage now?
Jason is giving out beta-invites if you ask him via email
I think its jason@mahalo.com. His twitter account has the specifics.