Facebook Versus Friendster and Myspace

Stealing Success & Leaving the unrewarded Behind Facebook Facebook, unitary of the most victorful affable networking sites up to date, has 500,000,000-users. Facebook make phenomenal success through the mistakes and use upf only of fellow competitors, Friendster and MySpace. However, was Facebooks success receivable to the downfall of its predecessors? In this piece, we will discuss what makes a genial networking website successful, and reveal what Facebook did and what other affectionate networking websites such as Friendster and MySpace, did not do.There atomic number 18 certain properties that will be highlighted later on in the paper that will distinguish the successful kindly networking websites such as Facebook from the unrealized, such as Friendster and MySpace. Social networking websites have five main characteristics. First, social networking websites atomic number 18 user-based where they be built and directed by users themselves. Second, social networ king websites are interactive, message that they are not just a collection of chat populate and forums any much(prenominal). Such websites are filled with network-based gaming applications, allowing individuals to play with unity other online.Third, social networking websites are community-driven allowing members to marijuana cigarette a group where they all encumber common beliefs or hobbies. People are able to find sub-communities of great deal who share commonalities, such as alumni of a graphemeicular high school, or part of a charity organization, or who are just provoke in the same things. Fourth, unlike other websites, social networks thrive on relationships. It allows peck to build connections, links to one another(prenominal) and allows concourse to chip in themselves toward the center of a network.These websites are also another way for individuals to gather up new friends, exactly it also allows them to reconnect with old friends lost along the way, allowin g them gravel to possible friendships out thither. The last characteristic of social networks is the emotional detailor. art object websites are usually designed with the primary function of providing information to the visitor, social networks provide users with emotional auspices and a sense that no press what happens, their friends are within reach. To start off, lets beg the wonder of what exactly went wrong with Friendster? There isnt a single movement that explains why Friendster failed, hardly merely actions Friendster did not take to secure their get as the number one social networking website. First, the to a greater extent popular Friendster became, the long it took to laden the webvarlet, sometimes taking as long as 40 seconds. Such technical problems were not emergences that could not be solved however, they tangle that such technical difficulties proved too pedestrian for them.Instead of spending hours darn such problems, the team of Friendster devoted most of its time talking approximately future investors, potential competitors and new features that would give Friendster a distinct look. They focused more on the future or rather than the problems of the present they valued to run before they could compensate walk. Secondly, Friendster was a closed system that allowed users to un little view the profiles of those on a relatively short chain of acquaintances.As a dating website, it was imperative to be able to find people whom may be suitable for you, merely if the viewing of their profile was limited, then the mishap of finding a possible date would be much start than if Friendster took on a escaped system approach. As mentioned, most of the problems Friendster approach were technical, but it was their decision to solely focus on the next forged thing, rather than the simple mechanics that do Friendster possible in the low place.If the team had solved these minor problems, Friendster today could s till be a leading soc ial networking website, and possibly have observeed MySpace and/or Facebook from emerging. On these floors, Friendster is an subject of an unsuccessful social networking website. Next, MySpace saw phenomenal traffics growth starting in early 2004 and it continued all the way to 2007 even as Facebook entered the scene, but what happened along the way? Similar to Friendster, MySpace faced several technical problems.Firstly, MySpace pages are designed mostly by individuals with little HTML experience do HTML code to be rarely met leading to recoveribility problems for users and freezing up web browsers. Secondly, security is another study problems. There are advertisements that provide links to fake login screens tricking users into entering their information, allowing people access to their page. another(prenominal) security issue would be of our personal information. There is no cover setting therefore f anyone wants to know more about an individual, there are no restrictions on the amount of information they could attain on the individual via MySpace. Lastly, MySpace lost to Facebook simply because there is no sense of solitude with MySpace. MySpace took an opposite approach from Friendster, allowing everyone and anyone to see their profile. Any individual keen on viewing a certain page would be given access whether or not the owner approved or not, rendering owners of MySpace account vulnerable to outside criticism and viewing.The open system caused a split up of security and personal issues creating stalking incidents, violent fights, and gate crashing of parties. These problems were due to the fact that anyone had access to peoples MySpace page, and nothing could be done to prevent limited viewership. Unlike Friendster, MySpace was able to see more success, however, that success was short-lived. And likewise to Friendster, MySpace did not respond to requests to placement their problems, causing them to fall into the category of an unsuccessful s ocial networking website.First Friendster, second MySpace, and lastly Facebook? What makes Facebook a fad, and why has it survived longer than its predecessors? A normal routine for a majority of the state would be, wake up, block off facebook, go to school/work, check facebook again, do work/listen to spill the beans while checking facebook, and then go home and check facebook once again. On average, its been found that people check their Facebook an average of 4 to 5 times a day. There are many reasons why Facebook is so successful, and why Friendster and MySpace failed to see the kind of success Facebook is seeing today.In the next part of the paper, we will see how Facebook overcame the problems Friendster and MySpace encountered, turning what could have been unsuccessful into something immensely successful. As mentioned previously, Friendster and Myspace encountered issues such as technical problems such as the webpage taking up to 40 seconds to load or where it would someti me just fail to load altogether, and additionally, that Friendster was a closed system. Facebook knew these reasons and do sure these were not to be problems.Mark Zuckerberg states, if the website is even down for a few minutes, people will leave. As such, till this day, users around the world have not seen Facebook down. Admittedly, there still are a few small technical problems, but users never had to storage area more than 10 seconds for a page to load, and if there were problems, they were fixed suddenly after. Having downtime would mean that the rate of infection for social networking sites would decrease causing less people to firstly know about the website, and secondly, to be able to stretch out the infection even further.This was a problem that caused the rapid reduction economic consumption rate for Friendster because not only did the rate of infection die down, but also people just simply got annoyed causing the readiness of new individuals rather low. Therefore, F acebook made sure there was no downtime and in doing so not only made the rate of infection high, but satisfied million users worldwide causing many to be suasible to the idea of being part of the new fad, Facebook. Next, Facebook did not enforce a closed or open system policy.Instead, they allowed users to choose whether they precious their page visible to people, and allowed users to adjust their security settings. It gave people an option to reveal as much or as little information about themselves, and allowed people to choose who to allow access to their information. This system not only solved Friendsters closed system, but at the same time, MySpaces open system and privacy problems. Security was never a real issue for Facebook until they started allowing more applications to be a part of the system.Inevitably, people created software that steal users sensitive information. However, shortly after, Facebook reacted by introducing new technology to limit the security breach. Fac ebook developer Mike Vernal stated, We take user privacy seriously. We are consecrated to protecting private user data. Shortly after the incident, Facebook rendered all applications that broke such security inactive. Lastly, as with all companies, talent is a major issue.We can talk about how user friendly, or how the technical bits are better in Facebook when compared to Friendster or MySpace, but the truth is that it all boils down to who is in charge. Facebook brought in better viral experts, more efficient programmers, stronger usability coders, more influential public relations teams and faster HR Personal. For instance, Facebook recruited Sheryl Sandberg, the head of gross revenue at Google, Jonathan Helliger, the former engineering head at Walmart, for former chief financial officer and VP of Genetech and Elliot Schrage, the former PR head at Google.After talking about the properties that made Facebook successful, Id like to talk about the receptivity of Facebook and how i t responded to the population because a population can only go crazy for a fad if people are capable of it. First, we will look at Friendster and how the population responded to it and what made Friendster successful at times. In 2002, Friendster was originally created as a dating website, four years later, Friendster was changed to cater to young teenagers. In 2006, Friendster became very popular in the Philippines because of their games and fun applications that were marketed.Along with that, Friendster started incorporating advertisements on their websites, but more importantly, advertisements that had to do with games. Second, MySpace became popular because it was a means to hear about what was chance to others, keep track of the whereabouts of friends and celebrities and to create and attend parties, all on one page. MySpace was not just a blog, but it was an area for friends to congregate and commune with one another. Next we will see how Facebook made use of Friendster and MySpaces strengths, turning it into their success.Facebook made use of the successes of both Friendster and MySpace, and combined everything that was successful into one platform. Friendster and MySpace were both marketed differently to different kinds of people, and because of this, Facebook knew how to make people more receptive to this new social networking site. Facebook did not just want to target people who wanted to find new friends or dates, or people who wanted to communicate with friends and keep in contact, or simply play games- Facebook wanted it all.And that was exactly what Facebook did, ensuring that people who joined would get the benefits from both Friendster and MySpace altogether. In doing this, Facebook made their website more appealing to a larger population, allowing two things to happen. First, by increase the number of things an individual can do on the website would make more people susceptible to wanting to be a part of it. Second, a larger population bein g susceptible would eventually mean a faster rate of infection causing more people to join and be a part of the increasing fad. Facebook was the new generation social etworking website that incorporated all the successful elements of its predecessors, and neglected all the unsuccessful elements. In conclusion, we have established that Facebook has attained a successful status due to its 500,000,000 users worldwide. Facebook is successful because of two main reasons. First, the failures of Friendster and MySpace gave Facebook an opening into the market and the opportunity to fix those mistakes caused by the two. Second, Facebook fed off the successes of both Friendster and MySpace, incorporating all the ideas into one website.Therefore, to be successful one must remember to firstly attend to the problems at hand, secondly, find out what makes things work, and lastly, make sure the population is receptive. With this, Facebook not only overtook its predecessors, but conquered their fai lures, and fed off their successes, becoming the number one social networking website of all time. Citations Chung, J. (2010) How Facebook won the battle of the social networks. Innoblog. Retrieved from http//www. innosight. com/blog/564-how-facebook-won-the-battle-of-the-social-networks. tml Dykes, B. (2010) Another day, another instance of Facebook breaching user privacy. Yahoo News. Retrieved from http//news. yahoo. com/s/yblog_upshot/20101018/tc_yblog_upshot/another-day-another-instance-of-facebook-breaching-user-privacy Gary, R. (2006). Wall Flower at the Web Party. The New York Times. Retrieved from http//www. nytimes. com/2006/10/15/business/yourmoney/15friend. html? pagewanted=all Rdube. (2010). Characteristics of Social Networks. Retrieved from http//socialnetworking. lovetoknow. com/Characteristics_of_Social_Networks