Monday, October 28, 2013

Facebook Analysis Assignment



James Catalano                                                                                                       October 28, 2013
Mr. Hennings                                                                                                          BCA
"Facebook"
           
            Facebook is perhaps the most popular social networking website with about 1 billion users currently.  Created in 2004, Facebook allows people to interact with one another by being virtual friends.  You can post on their timelines, play games together, have private or group chat, read their daily posts and view a lot of their personal information.  Facebook has not only grown to be the primary place of social interaction, but is also a useful place for people to gain information on any topic imaginable and for businesses to broadcast themselves to others.
            Over the years, Facebook has become the main website for businesses to market their companies to others and interact with customers.  There are about 1 million businesses and companies that have an active account on Facebook.  If people on Facebook like your business they can "Like" your page to have updates about the company come up on their feed.  Companies then use this account to post different things about their company such as new products and big discounts to alert their customers.  This allows the company to hear back from its consumers and it is a way to improve their company PR by creating a positive image to a large group of people.  However, this can lead to negative effects because now people can post bad things about a company that may or may not be true by commenting on their posts.  This can lead to negative impacts on the business if enough people view these comments.  Businesses can also pay for advertising on Facebook users' newsfeeds, even if the user is not a follower of their page.  Facebook has revolutionized the way businesses market themselves to the world.
            The biggest use of Facebook is for social interaction.  People can friend request each other in order to exchange personal information that they are sharing with the website and in order to view posts.  Also by being friends with others, Facebook users can post on their friends' timelines anything they want such as links, videos, game requests or songs.  They can also directly chat with one another and compete in online games together.  By being friends with someone on Facebook, you can learn a lot more about people and gain a virtual friend that you may share common interests with.  However, this can lead to abuse as their have been many cases of people bullying and stalking others.  This can lead to all kinds of personal problems, crimes being committed and even indirectly related to deaths.       
            Facebook also is used largely for entertainment and for news.  Entertainment and news on Facebook go hand in hand with each one another in that you can find news on virtually anything that entertains you.   There is information about nearly every subject on the website.  People can spend hours on Facebook because of all the news it contains about politics, celebrities, sports, music, pop culture etc.  In fact, many TV channels/shows and news programs have their own Facebook pages and are constantly posting interesting information.  Due to this the average Facebook user spends about an hour a day on the website just browsing from topic to topic and reading their feed containing information about friends, family and world news that interests them.  This type of customized news entertains people and is one reason why Facebook is one of the most popular websites in the world.  However, the availability of all this information and endless entertainment has negative effects.  Sometimes people spend too much time on the computer than they should because they are spending too much time checking and updating Facebook.  This can lead to some people becoming addicted to it.
            Facebook also has many recreational uses as well.  These uses include playing games, watching videos and just reading through your news feed.  Games such as Candy Crush, Farmville and Diamond Dash are examples of ways people can spend their time on Facebook.  By playing these games, people can challenge their friends and other users to beat their personal best scores.  This is another way to socially interact with others on the site.  However, this can lead to abuse as many people get annoyed with game requests that they receive from friends and may even remove them as a friend because of it.  People can also use the site recreationally by just surfing through their newsfeed and looking at friends, businesses, celebrities and other pages full of information for hours on end.  Facebook is simply just a fun site to use for many people; which is one reason why it is among the most popular websites visited in the world.
             



Links

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/10/04/facebook-has-a-billion-users-and-a-revenue-question/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TwKVSOrR-0

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-does-an-average-facebook-user-do-2013-3

http://www.facebook.com

http://www.statisticbrain.com/

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