The World According To Facebook

(Here’s the cool link to the visualization!)

Until someone invents something new (and I’m sure it’s already being done) social media is the best communication tool we’ve got going for us. If you don’t believe it, you might be interested in how our world looks according to Facebook.

As part of the hack-a-thon series of events Facebook engineers came up with Project Palantir (‘that-which-looks-far-away’ or ‘one that sees from afar’ for Lord of the Rings buffs). The project allows us to visualize Facebook data as it appears across the globe.
The team created a video of the project where each action is geolocated and visualized using “java and open source jme framework.” Not only can you see individual actions of facebook users, but interactions such as pokes, wall postings, and friend requests.

Poking, friending, and posting

According to facebook blogger Dan Rose, “Over 100,000 small businesses now have their own Pages on facebook.” Dan recently shared the story of a specialty chocolate store, TCHO, owned by Wired Magazine founder Louis Rossetto in San Francisco. ”Within 24 hours of creating a Facebook Page, TCHO already had dozens of fans on the site.”

And as the fourth most visited sight in the world with over 120 million active users, if you don’t have a facebook page that highlights your product or services, now might be a good time to get one. Like we’ve mentioned in previous posts, many companies are increasing on-line presence during this economic crunch. Moving into social media is a cheap and easy way to accomplish this.

Some of this action could be yours.

I’m worried that in the not-to-distant future, regular people will lose interest in social media sites like Facebook and Myspace and we’ll only be left with companies talking to each other. But for now social media sites could be the best low-cost place to reach customers you never knew you had.

Watch the entire Palantir Project video demonstrated by Facebook engineer, Jack Lindamood on the Facebook blog.