We the people of Facebook

The Facebook IPO was, without a doubt, the most widely anticipated and eagerly discussed topic this month. From Singapore to San Francisco, in meeting rooms and over coffee tables, across university campuses and next to office water coolers, millions of people eagerly discussed and discoursed the highly anticipated IPO filing… and I was certainly one of them.

I am not alone in admiring the juggernaut that is Facebook, and the creative genius of Mark Zuckerberg in inventing and shepherding a movement that has literally changed the lives of millions of people in the way they connect, communicate and share across the globe.

In 8 short years since its inception in a dorm-room in Harvard, Facebook is now available in 70 different languages, with 845 million monthly users (as of December 2011) making more than 100 billion connections with each other, with 2011 profits of $1 billion on sales of $3.7 billion, an IPO filing of $5 billion and a valuation of $75-100billion. The astronomical growth and astounding success of this social network is nothing short of remarkable!

And we the people of Facebook have, since our birth on the social network, spent a considerable portion of our lives (some more than others) and countless number of hours logged on, creating and continuously updating our profile, posting links, updating our status, sharing photographs, linking videos, showing our friends where we are, checking in and becoming Mayors and Kings, updating-deleting-updating relationship status’, growing virtual farms and buying virtual animals, selling items, pinning our interests, instagramming articles… we’ve been constantly statusing, constantly posting, constantly communicating, constantly sharing.

Throughout the life of Facebook, we the people have religiously chronicled our own lives, now meticulously organized into our Facebook timelines.

And that’s when it hit me – wait a minute. Facebook (the company) may have built the platform, but we the people built Facebook (the community)!

One profound thought always leads to another… so if a piece of us exists on Facebook, and if we truly own our data, then do we in direct effect own a piece of Facebook too?

Indeed a crazy thought, but a thought worth sharing. So what do I do? I promptly update my status, but naturally! And I quote: “So since we (the people) helped build Facebook (the community), shouldn't we get a piece of the IPO?? I'm just saying...”

Written half as a joke, but half out of curiosity to see how my amplified universe would react. Because react they surely did, and to my surprise, my obviously naïve thought garnered a groundswell of support and unanimous agreement, through likes and comments on how ‘we are the product’ and how ‘we have built Facebook’, to suggestions of starting a Facebook Group to rally support for ‘the cause’, to an intellectual debate on how/if we could monitor its ownership.

And right there, right that very minute, the democratization of Facebook was being discussed and debated across my own Facebook universe.

I guess I’m not the only one thinking this. Maybe, just maybe it isn’t such a crazy idea after all. For imagine a network that is created and owned by the people, for the people.

This may merely be a pipedream, but isn’t this what is truly at the heart of a social network, of a global community completely and seamlessly connected across faraway lands and the high seas?

And while I seriously doubt Facebook will ever choose this path, it would behove them to give something back to the community that has not only stayed loyal to but has also been instrumental in building the network into the juggernaut that it is today.

But we can, we should always dream… for dreams are how the future is built. For a social network owned 100% by the people, for the people – this may well be the infancy of a whole new social universe. I say here’s to the power of the people! And here’s to the power of social networks…

A profound thought indeed, but one worth sharing. 

Kunal Guha, Director of Strategy, Clear – M&C Saatchi