Facebook Versus Friendster and Myspace

theft Success & Leaving the Un achievementful undersurface Facebook Facebook, atomic number 53 of the most triple-crown accessible ne cardinalrking sites up to trulyise, has 500,000,000- exploiters. Facebook found phenomenal success through the mistakes and downf wholly of fellow competitors, Friendster and MySpace. However, was Facebooks success due to the downf whole(a) of its predecessors? In this paper, we go away discuss what makes a cordial networking website successful, and stag what Facebook did and what other multifariousnessly networking websites much(prenominal) as Friendster and MySpace, did not do. in that location be certain(p) properties that will be highlighted later on in the paper that will agnize the successful genial networking websites such as Facebook from the unsuccessful, such as Friendster and MySpace. Social networking websites study five main characteristics. First, complaisant networking websites be user-based where they atomic number 18 built and directed by users themselves. Second, brotherly networking websites ar interactive, meaning that they argon not bonny a array of chat rooms and forums anyto a greater extent. Such websites are filled with network-based gaming applications, allowing singulars to play with champion other online.Third, amicable networking websites are community-driven allowing members to get married a group where they all take charge common beliefs or hobbies. People are fitting to key out sub-communities of passel who make out commonalities, such as alumni of a occurrence high school, or disjoint of a charity organization, or who are honourable interested in the corresponding things. Fourth, strange other websites, social networks thrive on dealingships. It allows volume to build connections, links to iodine another(prenominal) and allows sight to establish themselves toward the pump of a network.These websites are also another way for individuals to discover sor e friends, scarcely it also allows them to reconnect with old friends lost on the way, allowing them access to possible friendships out on that point. The at last characteristic of social networks is the emotional factor. plot websites are usually knowing with the native function of providing information to the visitor, social networks set up users with emotional protective covering and a smack that no matter what happens, their friends are in spite of appearance reach. To start finish up, lets knock the question of what incisively went wrong with Friendster? in that location isnt a single rationalness that explains wherefore Friendster splited, still merely actions Friendster did not take to secure their position as the number one social networking website. First, the more(prenominal) popular Friendster became, the longer it besidesk to cut the webpage, some quantifys taking as long as 40 seconds. Such technical problems were not issues that could not be so lved however, they matte that such technical difficulties proved too pedestrian for them.Instead of spending hours fixing such problems, the team of Friendster devoted most of its time talking somewhat conterminous investors, dominance competitors and novel features that would give Friendster a hard-hitting look. They focused more on the future or rather than the problems of the present they valued to run before they could counterbalance walk. Secondly, Friendster was a closed in(p) placement that allowed users to only stance the profiles of those on a relatively short circuit chain of acquaintances.As a go out website, it was tyrannical to be able to find good deal whom may be suitable for you, only if the viewing of their profile was limited, then the possibleness of finding a possible date would be much lower than if Friendster took on a diffuse system approach. As mentioned, most of the problems Friendster face up were technical, unless it was their finis t o only focus on the next big thing, rather than the simple mechanism that do Friendster possible in the number one place.If the team had solved these minor problems, Friendster at present could still be a lead story social networking website, and possibly stimulate pr horizontalted MySpace and/or Facebook from emerging. On these broadsides, Friendster is an example of an unsuccessful social networking website. Next, MySpace saw phenomenal traffics growth kickoff 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 hypertext mark-up language experience make HTML principle to be rarely met leading to availability problems for users and freezing up web browsers. Secondly, guarantor is another study problems. There are advertisements that provide links to fake login screens tr icking users into entering their information, allowing flock access to their page. Another certification issue would be of our personal information. There is no secretiveness setting so f anyone wants to know more about an individual, thither 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 clubbyness with MySpace. MySpace took an black eye approach from Friendster, allowing everyone and anyone to see their profile. Any individual keen on viewing a certain page would be stipulation 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 lot of security and personal issues creating stalking incidents, violent fights, and approach crashing of unwrapies. These problems were due to the fact that anyone had access to batchs MySpace page, and nothing could be thro ugh to prevent limited viewership. Unlike Friendster, MySpace was able to see more success, however, that success was short-lived. And alike to Friendster, MySpace did not respond to requests to fix their problems, causing them to fall into the category of an unsuccessful social 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 flake for a majority of the universe of discourse would be, perk up up, consort facebook, go to school/work, check facebook again, do work/listen to shell while checking facebook, and then go abode and check facebook once again. On ordinary, its been found that large number 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 pr oblems Friendster and MySpace encountered, turning what could save 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 sometime just fail to load altogether, and additionally, that Friendster was a closed system. Facebook k raw these reasons and made 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 wait more than 10 seconds for a page to load, and if there were problems, they were fixed curtly after. Having downtime would mean that the ordain of transmission system for social networking sites would decrease causing less people to firstly know about the website, and secondly, to be ab le to spread the infection even further.This was a problem that caused the rapid diminution usage rate for Friendster because not only did the rate of infection die down, but also people just simply got annoyed causing the susceptibility of mod individuals rather low. Therefore, Facebook made sure there was no downtime and in doing so not only made the rate of infection high, but satisfied million users cosmopolitan causing many to be unvaccinated 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 lease whether they wanted their page visible to people, and allowed users to lay 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 wa s never a real issue for Facebook until they started allowing more applications to be a part of the system.Inevitably, people created software that take users sensitive information. However, shortly after, Facebook reacted by introducing new technology to limit the security breach. Facebook developer mike Vernal stated, We take user privacy seriously. We are dedicated 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 backside talk about how user friendly, or how the technical bits are unwrap in Facebook when compared to Friendster or MySpace, but the legality is that it all boils down to who is in charge. Facebook brought in better viral experts, more economical programmers, stronger usability coders, more influential public relations teams and faster HR Personal. For instance, Facebook recruited Sheryl Sandberg, the issue of gross reven ue at Google, Jonathan Helliger, the originator engineering head at Walmart, for former CFO 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 unfastenedness of Facebook and how it responded to the world because a population chiffonier only go crazy for a fad if people are receptive 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 little 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 direction to hear a bout what was happening to others, hold the line 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 foregather and communicate 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 twain Friendster and MySpace, and combined everything that was successful into one platform. Friendster and MySpace were both(prenominal)(prenominal) 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 good-hearted to a large population, allowing two things to happen. First, by increasing 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 being susceptible would ultimately 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 drop 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 chance to fix those mistakes caused by the two. Second, Facebook feed off the su ccesses of both Friendster and MySpace, incorporating all the ideas into one website.Therefore, to be successful one must imagine 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 failures, and fed off their successes, becoming the number one social networking website of all time. Citations Chung, J. (2010) How Facebook won the appointment 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 wind vane Party. The New York Times. Retrieved from http//www. nytimes. com/ 2006/10/15/ telephone line/yourmoney/15friend. html? pagewanted=all Rdube. (2010). Characteristics of Social Networks. Retrieved from http//socialnetworking. lovetoknow. com/Characteristics_of_Social_Networks