Some facts about Facebook's online presence its strategy and its potential. In this article we argue that some of the strategies endorsed by Facebook are misguided but that the data its provides give it unprecedented importance in the online realm.
Facebook has become the third website the most visited on the web behind Google and Microsoft. Mark Zuckerberg is at 26 the youngest billionaire in history. Facebook’s worth is estimated at 42.4 billion dollars. The strategy is twofold, make the social network ever more unavoidable, and extend its influence over the internet. As such Facebook is under a lot of pressure to expand its services. Of which are those related to smartphones, geolocalization (see the “places” feature), the experimentation with a new form of communication platform designed to streamline emails, chat and text messages, and the popularity of online gaming which could provide a competing platform to PayPal for online transactions.
But the main strength of Facebook comes from its function of indexing information about people, as such its services are sought after by other major players of the industry to bring traffic. Bing, Yahoo and Skype have all enhanced compatibility with the Facebook framework to improve communication for their users.
In the future, Facebook could become the main technological standard of the internet thanks to Opengraph technology (the “like” button), and become a threat to Google who currently dominates the search engine market but lags behind in social networking.
In my humble opinion what is most important to the success of Facebook is not the popularity of the oversaturated social gaming market (have you ever tried those games? I heard Farmville is a big hit, but why waste time harvesting virtual crops?) or the quality of dubious technological innovations such as this much anticipated, but unconvincing new communication platform (Google wave anyone? You can’t invent the need for new communication channels). What is most important to the success of Facebook is the human element, in other words its function as an index of information about a significant sample of the human population. This is what makes Facebook valuable, and this is what will drive the platform to become the next technological standard of the internet.
Of Innovators and Imitators
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Arial} span.s1 {letter-spacing: 0.0px} In this article we bring up the contradiction between unprecedented technological improvements and shameless commercial strategies that characterizes today’s fast paced market for consumer electronics.
The Death of the Home Computer
In this article we investigate how the introduction of new technologies has affected the market for personal computers. We begin by explaining how technological progress has caused traditional leaders to encounter unexpected competition. We go on to investigate how the changing nature of technological standards will affect user experience.
