Facebook success analysis

Résumé du document

Facebook is a social networking service launched in February 2004 that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. As of now the social networking site has over 500 million active users across the globe. Users can create a personal profile, add other users as friends and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Moreover, users can join common interest user groups, organized by city, workplace, school, college or other characteristics.

Mark Zuckerberg, while attending Harvard as a sophomore, launched the Facebook in February 2004. Membership was initially restricted to students of Harvard University. In two weeks after its launch, the social networking site was a huge hit; half of the student body at Harvard had signed up. Other schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskowitz and Chris Hughes to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks.

Extraits

[...] Facebook has played a pivotal role, coordinating groups of young people who pray or donate money to the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees, Red Crescent Society and other relief organisations. Arab governments often control public protests, leaving donations as one of the few means available to express support for the Palestinians and anger at the Israeli offensive. Of course, Israel has plenty of Facebook users as well. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports how a young Jewish Londoner, organized a pro-Israeli demonstration through Facebook; around 1,000 people showed up for the rally. B. [...]

[...] Due to the open nature of Facebook, several countries have banned access to it including Syria and Iran. The Syrian government cited the ban was on the premise that the website promoted attacks on authorities. The government also feared Israeli infiltration of Syrian social networks on Facebook. Facebook was also used by Syrian citizens to criticize the government, and public criticism of the Syrian government is punishable. In Iran, the website was banned because of fears that opposition movements were being organized on the website. [...]

[...] MacCain did not use it at all and said on TV that he does not even know how to use a laptop. The Washington Post used the word ‘clickocracy', it may be exaggerated but it clearly expresses the importance of the internet in the last presidential campaign in the US. Amnesty International was among the first NGO to launch protestation campaigns on Facebook. Even the MI6 is advertising on Facebook to recruit new James Bond. A Facebook World President has been elected last year. He happens to be French. His name is Arash Derambarsh. [...]

[...] Identity theft is also a concern. On February Fouad Mourtada, a citizen of Morocco, was arrested for the alleged creation of a faked Facebook profile of Prince Moulay Rachid of Morocco. In an article published in the Guardian in November 2007, Anne Wollenberg pointed out that the Information Commissioner's Office has issued a privacy warning to users of social networking sites. There is another issue: the problem of employers checking their employees or future employees' profiles. Countless cases are being reported worldwide as to how employees get sacked because of their careless or deliberate online postings. [...]

[...] It is the most popular social networking site in several English- speaking countries, including Canada and the United Kingdom. However, in the United States, it has only 36 million users compared to MySpace's 73 million. Facebook is 6th most visited site in the US and top photo sharing site with 4.1 billion photos uploaded. The website attracts 100,000 new users every day. One can count MySpace, Friendster and LinkedIn among Facebook's competitors. It is now available in more than 30 languages. [...]