Is Facebook Bigger Than The Internet?

On February 4th, Facebook celebrated its 14th birthday. Happy Birthday, Facebook!

In 2017, Facebook surpassed 2 billion users. Putting that number in context, roughly 1 in 4 people on Planet Earth - more than 25% of world population - logs in to their Facebook account on average at least once a month. As you're reading this - likely on your smartphone - look to the person on your left, on your right, and in front of you, chances are at least one of them is on Facebook as we speak. Remarkable if you think about it. Even more remarkable when you consider Facebook was started by a 19-year old Millennial. But of course, you could also read the endless Millennial fake news like the "17 Reasons Millennials Are The Worst Generation" and the many others that outline baseless myths and stereotypes about Millennials.

Approximately 50% of the world's population - 3.7 billion people - are now connected to the Internet. On the surface that is almost double the number of Facebook users. Of course, 2 billion Facebook users dwarfs the 1.5 billion YouTuber’s or the 900 million who who use WeChat, or the 328 million Twitteratti and 255 million who use Snapchat every month. The Facebook ecosystem also includes the 1.2 billion on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, respectively. Add to that Instagram's 700 million users and the 2 billion Facebook users previously mentioned, and it's quite incredible.

Facebook’s rapid growth in the past few years has been fueled by the developing world where the Internet connectivity has spread raising incomes and reducing barriers. Since hitting 1 billion users, Facebook added some 746 million users in in Asia and the Rest of World combined, compared to just 41 million in the U.S. and Canada.

In some parts of the developing world, Facebook usage has seemingly surpassed Internet usage. Think about that for a moment: In some parts of the world, there are people who don't know the Internet exists per se, only Facebook. In parts of Africa for example, results from a survey on communications use for Research ICT Africa where researchers found the number of people who had responded saying they used Facebook was much higher than those who said they used the Internet. The discrepancy accounted for some 3% to 4% of mobile phone users indicating a seeming disconnect (pun intended) between consumer behavior and Internet use. See Nigeria in the table below.

Consider the country of Indonesia just north of Australia and south of China, one of Facebook's largest markets. According to Facebook, there are now more than 115 million Facebook users in Indonesia, with 97% of them accessing via mobile device. Indonesian users are also highly active on Facebook, sharing content at 3x the global average and commenting approximately 60% more than the global average. Data from researchers in Indonesia also uncovered the discrepancy and similar anomaly to that of Nigeria mentioned earlier. More people were using Facebook than the Internet, in their minds. And this phenomenon is consistent across other large, developing economies in Asia like The Philippines, Thailand and Myanmar. See below.

Since 2013, Facebook has been making noises about connecting the entire world to the Internet. It seems they're well on their way to achieving that ambition. Consider the impact of the next billion people who come online - likely via Facebook - how their Internet experience will be shaped by their Facebook experience. What does that mean for consumer behavior, customer expectation, communications, payments, clicktivism, and basic human interaction?

Indeed the expectations and behaviors of the next billion people who will inevitably come online will have indelible impacts on how the Internet evolves over the coming years. For those already online - like you and me - be prepared to adapt as the majority dictates the terms.

And that has implications for us all.

Media Platforms Beware

Of course, Facebook, it seems, is unstoppable. Just ask the traditional publishers and old media companies. Facebook is now the dominant force in American media driving about a quarter of all Internet traffic. Facebook clips the ticket along the way by claiming a huge portion of ad revenues - traditionally this revenue kept the old news organizations running - and Facebook holds an enormous captive audience. According to Pew Research Center, almost half of all Americans - 45% - use Facebook to access their news. Consider that about two-thirds of all Americans - 66% - use Facebook. Unsurprisingly, Facebook accounts for 10% of all digital ad revenue, 25% of all display ad revenue and 37% of display ads on mobile.

The Internet Minute

In 1989, the World Wide Web - a.k.a the "www." in the average web address - essentially The Internet as we know it, was born. Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau proposed a hypertext system starting the modern Internet as we've come to know, and (mostly) love. While at CERN, Sir Tim basically invented the Web and developed HTML, HTTP and URIs which have been further refined and form the basis of the modern Internet. Not even 30 years later - the life of the average Millennial - look at how the Internet has evolved by the numbers.

Final takeaway: Every minute on the Internet a huge amount of cool stuff is happening. See below for interest sake and see where you fit in. How much of it are you participating in?

Jeremy K. Balkin is the award-winning author of Millennialization of Everything: How to Win When Millennials Rule the World (RMB 2017)

Disclaimer: views my own.