Facebook responsible for 182,000 new U.S. jobs

Entrepreneurs do it again: finding work when Washington gives them nothing

On the surface, it’s just some silly status updates, a few billion photos and the occasional FarmVille plot that needs tending, but it’s actually so much more. Having firmly situated itself as the biggest social network in the world, Facebook has given developers and entrepreneurs a treasure trove of a Web property to play around with.

Facebook’s platform is so rich, in fact, that the social app economy has created at least 182,000 jobs and is the source of billions of dollars in wages and benefits to the U.S. economy, according to a study published Monday.

In total, the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business study says Facebook has created 235,644 jobs.

Zynga, the top developer on Facebook by a long shot, employs over 2,000 people. That’s no longer some tiny startup, though, but rather a major company preparing to debut on the public market. It would be interesting to see how much of those 182,000 jobs are actually from smaller, lesser-known teams as opposed to the bigger name brands.

By Facebook’s own count, users install 20 million applications on a daily basis. And those applications are getting churned out by entrepreneurs and developers in over 190 countries.

"Our findings confirm that social media platforms have created a thriving new industry," said Il-Horn Hann, co-director of Smith's Center for Digital Innovation, Technology, and Strategy. "As Facebook and other platforms grow, we will continue to see job growth and the ripple effects of these advances in the US economy.”

It’s true: Facebook, though the only one with 750 million members, isn’t the only platform around. Foursquare, Google+ and Twitter all also have platforms designed for developers to work off of. It’s not a novel idea, but people are lately turning on to the idea that entrepreneurs more than anyone else are equipped to create jobs.

“Jobs seems to be all that Washington wants to talk about right now. And for good reason," said Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures in a recent blog post. "A lot of people are out of work. And incumbent Presidents don't often get reelected when 10% of the workforce is out of work. I've said my piece on that whole thing already. I'm not looking for Washington to solve the jobs issue. I'm looking for entrepreneurs to solve it. And they will in time.”

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