Is It the End of Facebook?
Camille Le Duc and Emily Humbert
Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, and Vine featured on a Samsung phone.
Emily Humbert, Staff Reporter
May 9, 2014
Filed under Opinions
Launched in 2004, Facebook was there at the start of social media. Mark Zuckerberg and three of his classmates were studying at Harvard University when they launched the software they at first called “facemash” before settling on the now iconic “Facebook”. The website was originally a “hot or not” game for Harvard students. They compared two pictures of students and picked who was “hot” or “not”. Facebook was primarily meant for Harvard students but expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, Canada and in all the United States. It was only in 2006 that Facebook allowed access to 13 year olds who had a valid email address. Throughout the years, the number of Facebook users increased greatly by 100 million each year until it reached 1,230 million users in 2013.
For years, Facebook was the leading social media website, and the most popular at the time. It’s had a lot of success because it made it possible for people who had lost contact with old friends or classmates to reconnect, as well as making it possible for people who were in different parts of the world to communicate, share what they are doing, post pictures, and chat. It was something the world had never experienced before.
Now, it seems that people aren’t using Facebook as much. Other social media apps and websites have been created. Instagram, Snapchat, Vine, Twitter, Ask.fm, and others are growing in popularity. The Beachcomber interviewed some students to see of they prefer Facebook or other forms of social media.
Tegan Black, a sophomore at Mission Bay, said, “I prefer Facebook because you can do anything with it. Plus it’s a classic, and it has been here so long, so why should I change? Plus it seems like all the other social media sites copy it.”
Devin Tran, another sophomore at Mission Bay, says “I prefer other social media apps to Facebook because there are multiple things on each of the apps, you can find and see things that catch your attention, and they are more interesting in my opinion.”
So even though Facebook is still very popular, it seems like other social media apps are starting to take over. Do you think that in a couple of years Facebook will still be popular?
