What are the Reasons for Facebook's Proven Success?

                There are currently over 500 million Facebook users (this number does not account for people that have multiple profiles). This number totals more than the population of the entire United States and just under half the populations of the incredibly populated countries, India and China. If success were measured in shear amount of usage, Facebook would triumph. It is the leading social networking site with Myspace and Twitter in close second and third respectively, but each trailing Facebook by at least 400 million users. What creates the astonishing difference between Facebook usage and other social network usage? Facebook’s proven success is driven by the ease of its usability. Facebook fares well on all five Nielson characteristics of Usability:

1.       1. Learnability- Facebook is pretty self-explanatory and straightforward. The userface is intuitive and simple in comparison to other social networking sites.

2.      2.  Efficiency- The speed of AJAX (programming language) interfaces allows for Facebook users to perform actions quickly and to be more interactive.

3.      3.  Memorability- Facebook’s layout has stayed fairly consistent. Once you get the hang of using Facebook, it is hard to forget and if forgotten, easy to pick up again.

4.      4.  Error-handling- Thanks to AJAX, errors are caught quickly and eliminated efficiently. Users will rarely see a blank screen and feedback is immediate.

5.       5. Satisfaction- Aesthetically, Facebook is very pleasing. It is clutter-less, organized, and easy to navigate. The graphics are neutral but agreeable.

Besides usability, Facebook has averted a significant amount of hacking and spamming in comparison to other social networking sites. Not only has it kept its platform relatively clean, it has also been on the forefront of innovative social networking. For instance, businesses now use Facebook as a primary source of publicity. Facebook has attracted the older generations as well as the younger generations. For many parents, Facebook is the only way they have been able to contact long lost friends from college or high school. The fact that Facebook transcends all generations is a measure of success in an age where technology grows and changes at a rate higher than the learning curve for many older generations.

It is human nature to want to know who we are dealing with. A person’s Facebook profile can recreate or represent a user’s personality and this makes the Facebook experience sincere and real. At its inception, Facebook gained the support of the student body of one of the most prestigious Universities in the whole world and this kind of exposure has given a kind of legitimacy that no other social networking site has been able to receive.