Late this evening (6 July 2009) Sheikh Mohammed sent this message on Facebook:أشكر كل من أعرب عن رغبته في الانضمام إلى قائمة أصدقائي عبر هذه الصفحة، ونظرا لتزايد أعداد من يرغب أن يسجل في صفحتي،قررت تحويل الصفحة الحالية إلى صفحة "شخصية عامة" حتى يتمكن الجميع من المشاركة والتواصل معي
“I would like to thank all who have sent me friend requests on Facebook. In order to accept the vast volume of such requests, this profile will be moved to a new "public page" over the next few days.”
Personal Facebook accounts have a limit of 5,000 friends. Well known leaders such as Sheikh Mohammed will easily exceed this number, hence the need to move to a ‘public page’ where one ‘becomes a fan of’ rather than ‘a friend’.
Two days after His Highness commenced on Facebook he had 700 Facebook Friends. Now he has 1400 official Facebook Friends but it sounds like he has hundreds more applications. What popularity.
Further Background:
HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum Faces Up to His Friends, ETE, 6 July 2009.
Connect with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid on Facebook, ETE, 27 June 2009.
Dr Geoff Pound
Geoff can be contacted at geoffpound(@)gmail.com or on Facebook.
Image: HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum online.
