Facebook: literally taking over the world

As we know from David Fincher's The Social Network, Facebook has grown from being a way to network friends from a university to being a network for millions across the globe (in fact, if it were a country it would be the fourth largest in the world).

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook creator. Courtesy of AP.

  As well as its amazing growth and resulting fame, the aforementioned film showed the ruthless business streak in the management of the website.  Something that seems to be true, considering the news today that Facebook is to trademark the word 'Face'.  This comes after the news that Facebook earlier sued the teachers' website Teachbook for the use of 'book' in its title, accusing it of 'riding on the coattails of its fame and goodwill'.  It has also forced former travel website Placebook to change to TripTrace in the past.

  The obvious product to have a problem with the trademarking of 'Face' would be Apple's new telecommunications software, FaceTime.  It seems that Facebook is becoming more and more ruthless in securing their brand and not letting anyone else 'dilute' it.

  Already on my Android phone, all my contacts are linked with Facebook accounts and daily life is becoming more and more integrated with social networking (for example Wetherspoon's use of FourSquare).  Is this social media revolution going to be the next big step in technology?  I think it well could be.