Believe it or not this is (or will be) the first time Facebook has graced the cover of TIME Magazine.

This is the cover that is set to hit newstands on May 31^st. The full article is already on the website. If you’re not into reading four web pages worth, I’ve boiled it down to the salient points below, plus my take on certain bits. 

I’ve been "on" Facebook since 2006 (while it was still the domain of .edu suffix holders) and my fascination with the Facebook phenomena, not the actual application, continues to grow. 

Facebook Addiction 
Some people are addicted to Facebook. I’m becoming addicted to understanding both people’s addiction to it as well as those who are quitting Facebook. 

We all know by now that Facebook seems content with shooting first and asking questions later. They roll out changes, updates, and "improvements" that they feel are in the user’s best interest and occasionally have to either rollback those changes or make adjustments based on user feedback, or as in the most recent case, a complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). They filed a complaint on May 5^th which takes issue with Facebook’s frequent policy changes and tendency to design privacy controls that are, if not deceptive, less than intuitive. 

As a direct result of the FTC complaint Facebook is getting ready to unveil "enhanced privacy controls" that will make it easier for users to understand and manage their Facebook privacy settings. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Where’s the "delete" key
Further to my interview on CBC Radio yesterday talking about privacy concerns, I did a little more research and found something interesting about the number of Google searches for "how to delete Facebook account". A search necessitated by the fact that figuring out how to delete a Facebook account is even more complicated than managing your privacy. As you can see from the graph below interest in the topic has increased about 300% in the last week.

In addition, the QuitFacebookDay website has gained another 1,500 committments since yesterday. As I said in the interview I don’t plan on deleting my account, but I have reviewed my privacy settings and am happy with them. Once you figure out where to find them, you do actually have ultimate control over everything you share and who you share it with.

I’ve been following Facebook coverage for years so I found a few of the points from the TIME article intriguing: 

• Facebook projects that it will hit 500 million users sometime next month. That would make it the 3rd largest country in the world (if it were a country)
• there are more than 48 billion unique images 
• more than 176 billion ads were served in Q1-2010
• the Open Graph project (Like Button) that started with 30 select content publishers last month now has over 100,000 sites generating more than 100 million "like" button clicks per day
• 25 billion pieces of information are shared on Facebook every month

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