Facebook reaches 500 million. What now?

Filed in archive strategy on July 23, 2010

The big news in social networking is that Facebook now has 500 million users. If Facebook was a country, it would be the third most populous nation behind India and China. So what's ahead for Facebook? Will the next few years be as easy?

Facebook now says it plans to reach one billion users but Sharon Gaudin in ComputerWorld says the next 500 million will not be as easy because of Facebook's privacy issues.

According to the 2010 American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), Facebook might have a half a billion users but it doesn't have that many friends. According to ACSI, 200 million people don't like Facebook at all. Their biggest gripes are around privacy and inconsistency.

That in itself is unusual. The rule of thumb in business is that customer satisfaction is linked to being a successful business. What's Facebook's secret? One suspects a lot of it is because Facebook simultaneously works like a phone and warehouse. It connects people and also acts as a storehouse for people's pictures and videos.

At the moment, Facebook has no real competitors. But that could change in the next few years, And when there's competition, Facebook's bad customer ratings will hurt it, potentially turning it into yesterday's story.