But what first appeared like a late announcement of revenge turned out to be great fun: Çelik had been discovered through Facebook, currently the world’s fastest growing social network community. The old schoolmate had found Çelik’s image on a photo posted there and then, through “a friend of a friend of a friend,” tracked down his email address.
This is the general way online network communities like Facebook work. Offering the ability to “upload photos or publish notes, get the latest news from your friends, post videos on your profile, tag your friends, join a network to see people who live, study, or work around you,” the network seems to fully cover the needs of its over 12 million users worldwide.
After this initial exposure, Çelik himself opened a Facebook account and within just two weeks he had already built up a list of 160 friends. He is amazed by the network: “It is extreme, how so many people from my past suddenly remember me and get in touch. Also, I have found so many friends I thought I would never talk to again after so many years.” He jokes that he now calls himself a “facebook expert,” but admits: “actually 160 friends is nothing, I have seen people who have collected up to 1000.”
‘Cyberspace a good medium for Turkish people to interact’
According to Alexa -- a Web site that provides up-to-date statistical information about Web traffic on other Web sites -- the figures for Turkey indicate a sharp rise in the community network’s users. Over the last month traffic to the Facebook site grew consistently and Facebook is currently the fifth most-visited Web site in the country. Turkish users now account for 2.35 percent of the network’s users, which puts Turkey in ninth place amongst the countries that use Facebook most.
İbrahim Tarlig, who co-founded Student Social Network (StudentSN), one of the youngest sites among the social community networks, estimates that there are at least five million potential social network users in Turkey. His Web site, which, like Facebook, features a web 2.0 platform, is the currently fastest growing network among those dedicated to Turkish-speaking users. Online since June 2007 and already growing by 3,000 new members per day, the site currently has around 60,000 users. His desire to concrete address Turkish people explains Tarlig with the fact, that these “were for long not adequately recognized by the established community networks.”
The possibilities for such networks in Turkey have also been observed by Zafer İpekçi, the CEO of the web based company, Computorium, and an expert on Internet affairs. He explains the recent hype, saying: “Turkish people are social but often they may find it hard to initiate contact with each other. Therefore, cyberspace is a good medium for them to find other people to interact with.”
Millions to earn with ‘open source’ networks
İpekçi also explains one of Facebook’s most unique features: Since the page is designed with open-source software -- meaning that the site is open for additional online software to be integrated into it by any user -- he says it is “much more interactive than other sites.” In practice this means, explains user Çelik, that “you can be surprised every day by new things.” The new software takes the form of applications, such as small games or competitions. For example, you can subscribe to a fortune cookie newsletter or - as created by one of Çelik’s friends - receive a new Atatürk quote every day. Çelik is convinced, “Yes, I think this will be the technology of the future.”
This is indeed an idea that sells itself. Though for long considerably successful in terms of user numbers and publicity, social networking has finally started to make money. According to web information company ComScore Media Metrix, there is a total market volume of over $900 Million hidden in the social network sector. Facebook is the definite top dog. Holding seventh place amongst the world’s most visited Web sites, the site may soon overtake its biggest competitor, MySpace, which is currently in sixth place.
So it was not really surprising when, after weeks of negotiations, the young founder, Marc Zuckerberg, 23, finally sold a 1.6 percent stake of Facebook to Microsoft for an amazing $240 million. Nor was it surprising when competitor Rupert Murdoch announced at a conference in San Francisco that MySpace could contribute between $200 to $300 million to his news corporation’s total profit.
Asked whether he gets nervous about these gigantic windfalls in the social networking sector, StudentSN co-founder Tarlig stays modest. “Due to the fact that our page is free of ads and also non-contributory, we are not even earning one cent,” he explains. Instead, his team continues to focus all of its members on technical development. Yet, in the Turkish blogger scene there are persistent rumors about a takeover bid from Internet giant Google. However, Tarlig says, “There is nothing official.” He says: “To be honest, we are not interested in money. This page is simply our hobby and we enjoy spending every free minute on it.” He and his team are already in training to develop settings and navigations for their next big step, “In the middle-run we would like to make it possible for our users to use StudentSN.com from a mobile phone, PDA or Blackberry.” He explains, “Wherever the user may be, he will be able to access student SN at any time from his mobile.”
Technology of the future, or danger for the private sphere?
It seems that online social communities are pointing the way to the future. Facebook recently bought Parakey, an operating system designed by the makers of the famous Firefox internet browser. The network’s masterminds have big plans. They intend to turn Facebook into the linchpin and turning-point of every online activity: retail sales, sharing music and videos, chat, email, searching and book marking. All in all, they hope that Facebook will be a comfortable online home.
But what kind of dangers are linked with this new development? Are we on the way to universal transparency? Aren’t these networks the ideal precursors to a surveillance society? Asked whether he would like his boss checking out his profile and seeing his holiday pictures, Çelik admits that there is a risk that goes along with this Facebook craze. “But,” he argues, “at the same time I am also able to look at my boss’s profile. So, I actually think that this is a piece of democracy.” He adds that he sees the danger coming from a different front, “For corporations, big enterprises and advertisers these sites are a dream.” With this amount of information about people, their interests and connections, you can really make money, he explains, adding, “A product you know that your friend bought creates much more trust than just a simple banner.” Web expert İpekçi also points to these risks. He says, “There are security risks that could be a real threat.” He warns, “users can be good targets for people with bad intentions.”
So, will virtual reality replace our real lives? Numbers from US research institute Forrester seems indicate such a trend. Among those who have access to the internet, already around 60 percent of the teens between the ages of 12 and 17 and around 80 percent of those between 18 and 21 are using at least one of these social networks. But Ipekçi has doubts. He sees in these sites neither a “real potential nor an ability to change our lives,” he says, adding that these sites will be more like “straw fires” that will “fade out soon.” Who knows?
Founded by a college student
Facebook is a social networking Web site that allows people to communicate with their friends and exchange information. Launched on Feb. 4, 2004, Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg, a former member of the Harvard class of 2006 and former Ardsley High School student. Initially the membership was restricted to students of Harvard College. It was subsequently expanded to other Boston area schools (Boston College, Boston University, Harvard, Northeastern University, Tufts University, Rochester, Stanford, NYU, Northwestern, and all Ivy League schools within two months. Many individual universities were added in rapid succession over the next year. Eventually, people with a university (e.g .edu, .ac.uk, etc.) e-mail address from institutions across the globe were eligible to join. Networks were then initiated for high schools and some large companies. Since Sept. 11, 2006, it has been made available to users with any email address, if they are within a certain age range. Users can select to join one or more participating networks, such as a high school, place of employment, or geographic region.
As of October 2007, the Web site had the largest number of registered users among college-focused sites with over 42 million active members worldwide and expects to pass 60 million users by the end of the year (also from non-collegiate networks). From September 2006 to September 2007 it increased its ranking from 60th to 7th most visited Web site, and was the number one site for photos in the United States, ahead of public sites such as Flickr, with over 8.5 million photos uploaded daily.
The name of the site refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of the campus community that U.S. colleges and preparatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff as a way to get to know other people on campus. On Oct. 24th, 2007, Microsoft announced that it had bought a 1.6% share of Facebook for $246 million, which values the site at around $15 billion. (Source: Wikipedia)
Approximate numbers
Active users: 49 million (as of October 2007)
Monthly new user average: 4 million
Daily new user average: 200,000
Page views: Over 15 billion per month
Searches: Over 500 million per month
Search index size: 200GB
Largest networks: London, UK 1,632,273 and Toronto, Canada 933,960
Photos: 1.7 billion (which averages to about 44 photos per user)
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