Facebook Asked Me: Who’s Missing?
Shooting for a billion users, Facebook asked me “Who’s Missing?” the other morning in a note/ad that showed up above my news feed. I may not be the only one that stared at this for a few minutes thinking…huh?
This is aimed at importing your contacts from Google/Gmail. You probably did this when you setup your account originally (or perhaps not). Part of me asks why they didn’t just say “Check your Gmail account to find friends.” But I’m sure that would have shown lower clickthrough rates.
The screenshot below shows the unit with a few friends highlighted as those who “Tried the automatic friend finder and found out.” First, I wonder how they chose these three friends – are these my cool friends? If they’re doing it, I guess I should 
. Second, Facebook’s social graphing system is powerful – it’s influential when they use this in a marketplace or search environment.
Screenshot from Facebook's Google/Gmail Importer
This may be prompted by a slow growth rate of U.S. users in June 2010, picking up only 320,800 new monthly active users after a huge May (7.8 million). As noted by Inside Facebook.
I’m gathering that the slow growth is a combination of general over-saturation, perhaps influencing early adopters to drop their accounts (blaming privacy policies), but really…who else is missing?
Are they going to reach 1 billion users? Or will projects like Google Me have enough influence and ease of use to encourage a migration?