With over 750 million users worldwide, online companies are taking aim at Facebook to fight for consumers’ time and advertising dollars, but Facebook doesn’t plan on backing down anytime soon. Amidst the notable launch of Google+, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced last week that Facebook would be launching “something awesome” this week during a press conference for media members. The news event will take place tomorrow at Facebook’s headquarters located in Palo Alto, California.

While touring the company’s 40-person engineering campus in Seattle, Zuckerberg said that the announcement would be about something that was developed there at the site – which plays a major role in the mobile arena for Facebook. Although there are numerous rumors regarding the announcement, it is speculated that the company will either be launching the long-anticipated Apple iPad app or new features such as a photo-sharing app and video-chat powered by Skype. The two well-known brands, Facebook and Skype, have already entered into a partnership that integrates the social media outlet with clients for Skype. When Skype was purchased by Microsoft in May, the connection between Facebook and Skype became even more entrenched, as Microsoft bought a $240 million piece of the Facebook pie in 2007.

Facebook has taken its own steps in trying to make any transition to Google+ more difficult by blocking Facebook Friend Exporter, a Google Chrome extension that let’s users extract contact information their friends have shared with them via Facebook and import them elsewhere. After Google+ was announced last week, one of the first to create an account was Mark Zuckerberg – who ironically has the most followers… even more than Google CEO Larry Page.

Photo by Doug Gross via CNN

Facebook has taken the world by storm. As we all know by now, Facebook was started in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and several of his Harvard peers and roommates. While membership was initially restricted to students attending Harvard University, the social networking site became an immediate success and quickly expanded to other colleges, universities, high schools, and eventually, membership became available to anyone over the age of 13 with a valid e-mail address. And, as they say, the rest is history.

With over 500 million users visiting Facebook on a monthly basis, Mark Zuckerberg has built an empire that has a tremendous global reach, as can be seen in the picture above. At first glance, the photo may seem like a standard outline of the world, but take a closer look and you will begin to see the huge impact that Facebook has had on our generation.

Paul Butler, the creator of the above image which is based on visualized data, was “interested in seeing how geography and political borders affected where people lived relative to their friends. [He] wanted a visualization that would show which cities had a lot of friendships between them.” Each link represents a connection, a connection that goes beyond continents, countries, and cities. Each connection goes beyond governments and municipalities. In the end, the plots of data are people, like you and I, and the lines represent real human relationships.

While people and companies may complain that Facebook has become a giant distraction or waste of time, there is an inherent social value that is not easily seen: The connections that are made can change lives. Earlier this month, a plea was made on Facebook by a woman watching the man she loved suffering through the pain of kidney failure. Out of desperation, she posted – and prayed – for a type O Kidney donor to “fall from the sky.” Almost instantly, a Facebook friend responded to her post and answered her prayer.

Although there are many stories like this that are often left untold, it must be stated that social media has become quite an extraordinary force. A force that is strong enough to power revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, a force that can connect people thousands of miles away, and even more touching – a force that can save a life.

Photo by Paul Butler via Facebook

Facebook just sent out an email to Facebook Page administrators letting them know about some much needed upgrades. Some of the new features coming to Facebook Pages are similar to the recent Facebook profile redesign.  These upgrades are going to make Facebook Pages much more flexible and interactive. According to the email, on March 10th all Facebook Pages will have receive the following new features:

• “Notifications when fans interact with your page or posts,
• A place to showcase photos along the top of your page
• A news feed for your page
• The ability to Like and post on other pages as your page”

These are features that have been lacking from Facebook Pages for many years, causing some businesses and groups to forgo creating a Facebook Page all together and instead creating an individual profile for their organization.

One of the ways that Facebook differentiated itself when it was founded in 2004 from the other social networks that were available at the time was by making it exclusive to Harvard students. They, then expanded the site to allow to other Ivy League schools to join. After they had reached almost all Ivy League schools, they opened the site to other colleges and then finally to the general public. Because of the way they controlled who could create a profile on the site, they prevented the service from being inandated with the companies and garage bands that diluted the experience at other social networks like MySpace.

Hopefully, these changes will help businesses and organizations to interact with their customers and members, while allowing Facebook to keep the methodical and clean user experience that it has become known for. Although all Facebook Pages will receive the upgrade on March 10th, the email explains that administrators can go to their Page now and preview  the new design, and they can choose to upgrade their Page early.

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Read more about the redesign to Facebook Pages on Huffington Post’s article, Facebook Pages Get a Redesign and AllFacebook’s article: New Facebook Pages: Everything You Need To Know.