FB…that’s how the “cool” people refer to Facebook is on of the most phenomenal developments on the Internet.

Now that sounds like a really big claim but if you know a thing or two about FB, you’ll agree.

What started out as a way to take the typically issued college Facebook and put it online, FB took the world by storm. FB allowed people to connect with fellow students and see their photos. Although, regrettably FB started out as a way to rank who was “hot and Not”. It became so much more.

FB mushroomed from school campus to school campus and has become a way to share information, to market and so much more.

So who uses FB now?

Well, it isn’t kid stuff anymore. There a literally millions of people actively using FB at any given time all over the globe. And it has given rise to phone applications as well as tablet applications, so you never have to go anywhere without access to FB.

There is hardly a popular business, television show (including all the news personalities), book, or individual out there without a FB page. And it if you think about it, it is so much more user friendly than actually building a site. There’s not hosting, no learning html or relying on a flaky webmaster to get eventually update your site.

The Pros:

The best things about FB are the fact that it has allowed people to connect all over the country who otherwise would have lost touch. It also allows people to form communities based on similar interests and it has created an amazing platform to share information.

In addition, FB has become a forum where people can discuss political ideas, protest and connect with the globe. Just look at some of the recent international upheavals that have found their way to FB. It is no wonder that there are many controlling governments who are looking to shut it all down.

If you are a business FB creates an instant cache. It is almost like having a phone number. You can hardly do business without one. And it is cheap and easy marketing as I said before. I mean why would you pay for a yellow page type ad (hundreds of dollars) when you can pay an outsourcer $5 to set up your FB account and you are good to go and people will be able to find you so much more easily.

The Cons:
People don’t always have the best boundaries, so people share a lot of personal information on FB. It always blows me away when I see pictures of children with their names listed online along with their home address. People have been known to announce when they are leaving the house or going out of town. This has led to burglaries, and much more.

A few years back a friend of mine who is a landlord, went to one of their properties they thought was vacant and found a squatter there. When they called the police the first thing the police did to look up info on the errant tenant was to find them on FB. They were able to learn where their family was out of state and served a warrant there for a related crime.

Unbelievable!

Even worse is that there are some bad people out there that prey on young people who are unable to tell the difference between an friendly communication and one with sinister underpinnings. FB does have an age limit, however, this is hard to enforce. I mean how hard is it to type the wrong date. It is up to families to make sure that their children are not logging in unsupervised.

The last downside I will mention is its addictive quality. People can lose hours if not days on FB. Which is fine perhaps on a rainy Sunday afternoon, but studies have shown that people sometimes sacrifice everything else for their FB time. It’s important to take everything in moderation.

Well, don’t miss out FB is the “thing” but don’t get too sucked in… there is a real world out there to experience too.