Facebook – Nigeria to Think Outside the Box by Designing a Home-Based Software

@ Abstract

@ Introduction

@ 2004 – date : the beginning and rise of Facebook

@ Mark Zuckerberg’s and Facebook’s Net worth ($)

@ The crying face of Facebook

@ Why Nigeria should design a home based software

If what is trending the world over about technological advancement in the area of software development is anything to go by, Nigeria is ripe enough to give Mark Zuckerberg and his crying Facebook face a run for their money. Nigeria should think outside the box by designing a home based software. We have the enabling environment and a vibrant population

Eighteen (18) years old this February 2022, Facebook is an American Online Social Network service founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with 4 of his fellow Havard students roommates. The name ‘Facebook’ came from the facebook directories often given to American University students of the time.

Membership and users was initially limited to Havard students, but gradually expanded to North American Universities, and since 2006 began to include everyone over 13 years old. Facebook was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010’s Facebook experienced a major expansion when it created it’s subsidiary WhatsApp and Instagram app. As at 2020 Facebook had 2.8 billion monthly active users, and an increase to 2.85 billion active monthly users in March 2021, ranking 7th in global internet usage. By the 3rd quarter of 2021, Facebook experienced a boom in users, rising to a world record of 1.93 billion users daily.

Mark Zuckerberg, (born May 14, 1984) Harvard University drop out is the CEO of Facebook. His personal net worth is $79.4 billion. On the other hand, Facebook net worth as at 4th quarter 2021 stands at $124.879 billion from its earlier 3rd quarter 2021 net worth of $129 billion.

Dwindling and falling fortunes of Facebook exposed this global app to the reality that the “rich also cry” :  Facebook recorded a $33.67 billion revenue loss in the last quarter of 2021. By February 2022, Facebook daily active users dropped for the first time in it’s 18 – year history. As we speak (February 2022) Facebook logging had dropped by 500,000 users. Facebook recorded more loss of users in Latin America and Africa towards the last quarter of 2021. – you know why ?  Facebook is facing numerous issues that are detrimental to economic growth like corporate re-branding, competition from Tik Tok and YouTube, as well as advertisers cutting down on spending.  Numerous lawsuits and litigation due to content infringement, hate speech and others from clients and users. An imposition of restrictions and outright ban on users for certain period of time for contravention of their code of conduct, all in an attempt to curb the number of lawsuits and litigation.

In 2020 Facebook imposed banns and suspension on high profile personalities including then US president Donald Trump. Trump was suspended from Facebook site in the wake of the attack on the US Capitol in June 2020. In 2021 alone Facebook banned yours sincerely, my humble self on 3 different times for posting content that fails to conform to their community operational standards and ethics. Every of those 3 restrictions lasted for a period of 7 days each. A few others were for 24 hours. You can now imagine the loss in revenue and other consequences as a result of these banns and restrictions imposed on so many other Facebook users on a global scale.

Nigeria has a population of over 200 million. With over 40 million Nigerians each holding a Twitter account, over 67 million on Facebook, over 40 million on Instagram, over 70 million on WhatsApp, and over 85 million logging on to the Internet for social, educational, recreational, research, business, and economic reasons, etcetera, it will not be out of place to suggest to Nigerian professional content developers to design some home grown communication patent. If what is going on all over the world regarding development and technological advancement is anything to go by, Nigeria is ripe to give Mark Zuckerberg and his crying Facebook face a run for their money.

It therefore remains to be seen whether the Nigerian government, or private entrepreneurs, or software developers, or others will step in to move Nigeria forward to design a home made modern communication software facility, or we continue to fund/enriching others who keep smiling to the bank.