Growth of Social Media

Chapter 25 examines the exponential rise and eventual saturation of social media growth, focusing on Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook began in 2004 as a Harvard student directory and quickly expanded to other universities, then globally by 2006. Its user base grew exponentially until around 2010, reaching 600 million users, before transitioning to linear growth and surpassing 3 billion users by 2023. LinkedIn launched in 2003 as a professional networking platform, initially growing slowly but accelerating after introducing premium services and company pages. It went public in 2011 and was acquired by Microsoft in 2016, later integrating AI-powered recruitment and learning tools. LinkedIn reached nearly 1 billion users by 2023. Both platforms’ early exponential growth was fueled by network effects, while later growth slowed as potential audiences neared saturation. Advances in internet infrastructure, scalable software, and mobile connectivity enabled these platforms to become global communication and networking tools.