When Facebook signed up its 100 millionth member last August, its employees spread out in two parks in Palo Alto, Calif., for a huge barbecue. Sometime this week, this five-year-old start-up, born in a dorm room at Harvard, expects to register its 200 millionth user.<\/p>\n
That staggering growth rate \u201d\u201d doubling in size in just eight months \u201d\u201d suggests Facebook is rapidly becoming the Web\u2019s dominant social ecosystem and an essential personal and business networking tool in much of the wired world.
Yet Facebook executives say they aren\u2019t planning to observe their latest milestone in any significant way. It is, perhaps, a poor time to celebrate. The company that has given users new ways to connect and speak truth to power now often finds itself as the target of that formidable grass-roots firepower \u201d\u201d most recently over controversial changes it made to users\u2019 home pages.<\/p>\n
As Facebook expands, it\u2019s also struggling to match the momentum of hot new start-ups like Twitter, the micro-blogging service, while managing the expectations of young, tech-savvy early adopters, attracting mainstream moms and dads, and justifying its hype-carbonated valuation.<\/p>\n