Unlike iPod where one has to actually make an investment and pay for the product, Facebook is a free service where you can use it whenever you like.  There are a number elements to consider in here.  For a website to grow organically it will take a lot longer than it has taken Facebook to reach its current users.  So other methods have to be adopted.

Facebook’s first and foremost way of getting more users to its website is through scanning your address books.  As you sign up to Facebook for the firts time you are asked if you would and allow Facebook to scan your address book and find friends that might already be on Facebook.  That’s fine, because you always would want to link to your existing friends and if they are on the same network that you have already joined then even better.

 The second part of their methodology is that all these email addresses that have been scanned from your address book, which you had already given permission for, are kept in Facebook’s database and as soon as someone signs up to Facebook next, if their email address matches one in your address book, they are automatically sent an email via Facebook, stating that “John Smith would like to friends with you on Facebook”.  Now that’s not necessariy true.  First of all you have hundreds if not thousands of email addresses in your address book and not all of them may necessarily be friends and even if they were at the time you signed up to Facebook, they may not necessarily remain your friend for ever.   If  a certain person in your address book happens to sign up to facebook later than you and at the time they sign up to Facebook, let’s say you and this person have had an arguement and are no longer friends, then this presents a problem.  The issue is that at the time you signed up to Facebook you consented to Facebook scanning your address book and inviting all your friends on your address book, however the message that is sent at that later date, directly via Facebook, is not necessariy approved by you at the time that it is sent.  This may create an unwanted situation.  Why should you invite someone you are no longer friends with to be your friend on Facebook and see and share your private life.

 Let’s look at an example and something even funnier.  I signed up to Facebook some years ago, but given all the privacy issues and the fact that I did not want to receive hundreds of message on a daily basis at work, I created and used a new email address for my Facebook account.  I then logged into Facebook and did not allow it to scan my address book.  So far so good. I connected to a few people that I wanted and only emails from those people who would search to find me by name.

 More recently, I updated my profile and the Facebook profile application suggested that I should provide a secondary email, just in case I should forget my password and if the primary email account fails to work then it would be difficult to recover the password.  Good suggestion, so I updated my profile and added my work email address.

 In less than a few hours and all in one go, I received over 10 emails from people I know stating that “They would like to be friends with me on Facebook”.  Now several questions ran through my mind at that point! 

1. Do people have really nothing better to do than spend their whole time on Facebook looking for new and old friends?

 2. Even if the above was true, were all of these people searching for me and wanting me to be their friends at the same time? 

 3. Finally many of these people are my clients! Do they really want to be my friends?

The answer to all of them is NO.

 As sad as it may sound; No one was searching for me and none of them had specifically asked to become my friend on Facebook.  It was merely that when they signed up to Facebook, they allowed the website to search and keep all the email addresses in their address book and then link them to anyone new who signs up or updates a profile.

 While it does not take a PhD to work the above methodology out, what confirms Facebooks methodology is the fact that I received the same invitation in the list of 10 emails I received from a client who had died about a year earlier.

 So Facebook’s strategy to find your friends for you is an interesting way and it has allowed the website to become the biggest social networking site that it is today.  However this method poses some issues and as I mentioned earlier on Facebook’s notifications for adding more people to your friend list and their network is sent at later dates without your knowledge and consent at that particular time, leaving you vulnerable to issues and encounters that you may not have otherwise expected.