Facebook: strength in numbers

It has been reported that Facebook overtook Google in the number of hits it received this month. This is the first time since the search engine became renown that it has been overtaken. So Facebook is THE MOST VISITED WEBSITE IN THE WORLD. The co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Chris Hughes, who met and created Facebook whilst studying at Harvard, must be ecstatic. They are both fantastically rich with Zuckerberg being named the youngest self-made businessman worth over a billion dollars. A billion dollars from a website which costs nothing to access. They provided a free space for people to communicate and then just watched the money roll in as the numbers increased. Facebook is probably one of the most desired advertising spaces and rightly so since millions if not billions log into the website and with the clever profiling advertising is directed in relation to the individuals profile.

So what can we learn from Facebook. That sometimes you have to “speculate to accumulate”. They could have charged for Facebook in the beginning to cover their costs, however, by spending money on their product but keeping the service free the numbers of users rapidly increased. This is turn has allowed Facebook to tap into the major business of advertising with companies and their million pound budgets.
Also, create something you genuinely are passionate about. When Facebook was first made, they did not have dreams of being a world-dominator they just wanted people in the college to talk to one another. If your business is made for a real purpose to answer a need it is more likely to succeed.

They said age brings knowledge... but we have Google

It was socially accepted rule of life – age brings you knowledge and that is why as a younger generation we are taught to trust the advice given to us by ‘elders’. They know better because they have lived longer and are therefore more knowledgable. However, now we have the internet do older people actually know more?

The internet allows anyone to become a mini-expert. In very little time you can go from nothing on a topic to knowing enough. We are going to become the generation of blaggers.

Now I am not claiming that experience brings nothing. There is a great difference between knowing something and have experienced it. Also, age brings wisdom. However, when it comes down to the laws of the younger generation working hard with the knowledge that in years to come they will climb up the ladder. Does this system work today?

Does management have to be the oldest people in an organisation? The world we are living in is changing so fast and businesses need to respond to these changes. Is the older generation equipped to keep up with technology which could never have even been imagined in their early career years? Now it is not about what you know but how you use it.

In the future I see conglomerates that are run by people in their 20’s. The young creative generation is the future.

Retiring at 40? Sounds perfect to me.

A big fish in a pond or a little fish in the ocean?

The idea of being a big fish in a pond or little fish in the ocean has been something I have been debating recently. Moving from the quiet southern town of Chichester to the big city of London. I ask myself which one is better? Was I happier in a little ‘city’ or will the big city answer all of my dreams?

It is fair to say I used to be a big fish in a pond. Everyone knew who I was. That was not particularly hard though. I went to the smallest University in the country and I had a very loud mouth. I also think my frizzy dyed ginger afro made me memorable, or at least recognisable.

Now I have moved to the big City, well as big as you can get in England…London…”concrete jungle were dreams are made of, there’s nothing you can’t do”. It is the city of opportunities. People are here seeking fame and fortune or they want to live the fast life. However, except for the rare few you just become just a face in the crowd, another wannabe, a nobody.

So which is better? Being a big fish is great but it has its downfalls. Always being recognised, everyone knowing everything about you, always having to be the persona you have created around you, it can be a drag. Being a little fish, a no-one is difficult. To feel obsolete as if you make no difference in the world and if you weren’t here it wouldn’t make a difference at all that’s soul destroying.

The ocean brings numerous opportunities which you could never get in the pond. Is it not better to be smaller in a more amazing place, than important in a boring place. The city offers the chance to grow; a little fish can become a big fish. Now imagine being a big fish in the massive ocean, that’s power, that the sort of big fish I want to be.