2012: The Year of Facebook

There are those who would say that any one of the past several years could be called “The Year of Facebook” although I would argue that none will be larger than 2012.  First of all, the social networking giant will be floating their monster IPO this year which will doubtlessly be met with a tremendous (and perhaps disproportionate) level of rabid enthusiasm.  The infographic at the bottom of this post goes into excruciating detail about the ins and outs of the IPO in comparison to some of the largest companies, examples of the real breadth of the company’s reach, and – of course – the percent of the company Mark Zuckerburg currently owns.

Along with the staggering wealth that Facebook’s IPO will generate in 2012, the company will also reach a historic and potentially unprecedented milestone.  It is estimated that Facebook will cross the one billion user mark sometime in August.  For a company that just crossed the 800 user mark in September of 2011 and who has largely reached a point of saturation in the U.S., this milestone is very significant.  It represents growth in markets such as India and China that will need to be exploited rapidly if Facebook ever hopes to reach the two billion user mark.

Related articles:

• Technology trends of 2011 (marshallstanton.com)
• 2011 social media year in review (marshallstanton.com)
• Facebook for Android (marshallstanton.com)
• Facebook’s influence on e-commece (marshallstanton.com)
• Facebook’s massive market capitalization (marshallstanton.com)