Time Magazine just capped what has turned into a stellar year for the social networking phenomenon Facebook by naming founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg its Time Man of the Year. This is, my friends, as it should be. We'll remember 2010 as the year Facebook turned a corner to become a world-wide phenomenon and its leader, a man. Okay, I know that makes Zuckerberg sound like a 13-year-old Bar mitzvah boy. On the other hand, Zuckerberg is still just 26 years old and is, according to Time, the second youngest person ever to be named Man of the Year.
Zuckerberg spent most of the past 6 years as something of an industry cipher. He made rare public appearances that usually ended poorly. This year, though, we met the new and improved Zuckerberg. He was profiled in various magazines including, notably, The New Yorker. As I read that interview earlier this year I was struck by its length—or lack thereof. It was one of the shortest New Yorker profiles I'd ever read. It's not just that Zuckerberg is young, but his life really is Facebook (which he launched while still in college and only 19 years old). What else is there to say about him? Still Zuckerberg went on Oprah, donated money and even pledged to give away his fortune to charity. At this last bit of news, some complained that all Zuckerberg's money is on paper and not real. That may be so, but Zuckerberg certainly became a "real" person to many people in 2010.
However Time did not choose Zuckerberg for his worth or who he is specifically. It has to be for what he does. There is no doubt that Facebook is now the world's most popular and important social network. Some would argue that Twitter, with its news-centric focus and rapid information sharing is more important, but the people who believe this spend most of their time on Twitter. That's not most people. In fact Twitter currently has roughly 145 million users. Facebook has over half a billion. The numbers speak for themselves.
2010 was the year Facebook got a lot more aggressive—on many fronts. It developed a way for other sites to easily access all the public info about its users, it built community pages to take on knowledge giant About.com, Facebook e-mail is slowly rolling out to millions of users (watch out Google, Yahoo, Microsoft), you can create and share documents on the platform and Facebook's Like button is now an inescapable part of the web.
As I noted in my year in review story, Tech's Biggest Winners and Losers: 2010, Facebook and Zuckerberg shared something of a Teflon coating this year. Those angry over Facebook privacy concerns have been largely ignored and the Mark Zuckerberg portrayal in The Social Network only served to solidify Zuckerberg's tech superstar status.
Facebook has become a huge part of our lives, so big that I think it's becoming hard to measure its overall impact. I challenge you to find someone who isn't a site member; visiting their Facebook profile is a daily ritual for many. Some, like my sometimes tech-averse-wife, visit multiple times a day.
There's an old saying in the software biz: 80% of users use just 20% of the available features. This is easily true with, say, Microsoft Office. Facebook seems to break that rule. People I know use a wide variety of features (and third-party plug-ins) and happily tap into Facebook's latest innovations. Perhaps that's because Facebook is able to roll them out slowly. However, I do find it surprising that even as people complain about how Facebook changes the interface, and adds and moves features, they all continue to use the service and eventually start using the new features.
People who know me understand that I'm not a huge Facebook user, though I admit that I have used it more in 2010 than I did any year before. Sometimes I wonder about its broad appeal. It's not as if other social services haven't offered at least some of what Facebook does.
When I asked my wife why she likes Facebook, she gave me what I consider a fairly typical answer, telling me that she enjoys keeping in touch with people, "seeing what's going on with everybody," she paused, "and commenting on it." Clearly that Greek chorus aspect is big part of Facebook's appeal. It could even be at the center of it. Without people reacting to posts by "liking" and, especially, commenting, Facebook is a pretty boring service. Comments on what we're doing and on the photos and videos are all what give Facebook life.
Even so, I'm not so sure that's why Facebook is so successful or if that's why Time selected Zuckerberg as man of the year. In my opinion, it's about discipline. Zuckerberg and by extension, Facebook, is a paragon of product discipline. Facebook almost never over-promises and under-delivers. It innovates but doesn't stray too far for a well-worn path and recognizable comfort zone. Things were happening quickly in 2010, with loads of new features and initiatives, but Facebook has almost always gradually rolled out updates and Zuckerberg rarely oversells any advancement (though perhaps that's just his delivery).
Mark Zuckerberg is a hands-on CEO who deeply understands his product and though he's not the most personable guy, I do think he gets his audience and customer too (he built Facebook for himself, after all). Facebook's importance as platform and Zuckerberg's impact on our lives should not be underestimated. I have a feeling that 2010 could be just one of many "Facebook" years to come and Zuckerberg could someday even grace the cover of Time Magazine again.