Thursday, February 21, 2019
Facebook faces up, for better or worse? Essay
Facebook started as a collegiate social network (Atal, 2007). In May 2007 it wedded the college corner and opened its doors to everyone. ComScore noned that 71% of users are now right(prenominal) the college age-bracket (Atal, 2007). Theres no doubt that the move signifi johntly change magnitude the rank and file in the network, but is their close to open to the normal unarguably for the better?Facebook made its mark by focusing on a college niche. Their decision to veer a style from this mart could have serious consequences to the network. 1 trade off is between size and significance. A niche encourages specific, familiar and private network. Student-exclusive networks provide users with a sense of importance Its belatedly to become a big fish in a small, students-only pond (Atal, 2007). It gives them the feeling of belonging of being a part of a confederacy they can call their own. It connects them to people they can relate to. While membership is limited to a specific class of people, size is compensated by closer and more meaningful interaction between the members.The downside is, industrys are as comfortably restricted to the interests of the niche market.Public networks on the other hand can reach more people. A diverse crowd needs change things, thus they have bigger room for improvement and development. They are not limited to specific programs, interests or advertisements. By shifting to a universe social network, Facebook got rid of its boundaries. It opened its doors to serve more people. It embraced an opportunity for growth. unitary of the issues raised is the reaction of the overlord members to the upgrade. Facebook has such a strong forbear on the college social networking market (Atal, 2007). The change in focus market did not seem to affect the support of students. Original members remained loyal to Facebook patronage the change.Going from a niche to a public network is a new ballgame for Facebook. They are up against giant networks. They need to run on a higher level. They have to create a niche amidst the league of giants in order to stay on top.Leaving their niche opened opportunities for new networks to step in. CollegeOTR.com, CollegeTonight.com, and CollegeWikis.com are three of the websites that are potential to benefit from this. Capitalizing on the niche left by Facebook, these network receive to create networks that are as specific as they could be (Atal, 2007). outcomeFacebooks decision to abandon the college niche and upgrade to a public social network is beneficial to Facebook. It offered opportunity for growth without alienating the original members. While the focus expanded to include everyone interested in connecter the community, they can still serve the need for smaller communities by evolution applications suited for this purpose.By upgrading to a public social network, Facebook put an destroy to the competition between Facebook and other college networks and paved the way for c ollaboration. One model of this successful partnership as mentioned in the article is the SuperWall (Atal, 2007). CollegeWikis.com sponsored Superwall, a Facebook application where users post college-specific information that is instantly communicated to the virtual message walls of other registered users at their college (Atal, 2007). Collaborations like this not only promote cooperation among the networks but also redeem the best of both worlds to the users.Facebook gave up its niche market to give way to improved service, diverse membership and better partnership with other networks. The decision positioned the company to serve more people, produce more products and services well into the future.ReferenceAtal, Maja. (2007, August 8). Facebook Faces Up. Businessweek, 1-2.
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