Facebook.com
Janice Li
Hue Luu
History
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Founded by Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin
Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes [1]
Launched in February 2004 [1]
Private entity [1]
The Need
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To have a media that helps/enables
people to maintain relations with others
(whether they be acquaintances or close
friends)
What it does
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Serves as a social networking utility that
enables users to interact with their
friends, family, and co-workers. [2]
What it does (continued)
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Photo albums[3]
Events [3]
Gifts [3]
Applications [3]
Marketplace [3]
What it does (continued)
Commerce value chain
 Attract: free social networking utility for
individuals and builds traffic for advertising
revenue
 Interact: features provided enable users to
facilitate their relationships with others
 Act: enables users to constantly update their
profiles and view updated profiles
 React: allows users to keep in contact with
acquaintances
Screen Shots…
Menu bar to access the
different parts of your
personal site. Includes
messages and a link to
friends who recently
updated their profiles.
Menu for your
privacy settings
Shows the
different
applications
you can have
on your
personal profile
Shows the latest
from your friends,
such as new
pictures, events
they’re attending, or
if they change
something on their
profile
Ad for
Facebook’s
revenue
Applications
Friends
Latest
Activities
Allows you to enter any
information you want
the public or your
friends to know.
Allows you to join groups
and permit people to see the
groups you are in.
Allows your friends on Facebook
to write comments on your wall.
Innovation
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“[To] create a universal online database
for college students with socialnetworking functionality ”[4]
–Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO
Revolutionized social media
Allow users to connect with each other
differently
Exclusivity
Customers
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College students
(February 2004) [5]
High school students
(September 2005) [5]
Individuals in the
workforce
(May 2006) [5]
Everyone
(September 2006) [5]
Statistics (May 2007) [6]
Target Audience

Statistics (May 2007) [6]
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Prior to 2006: college students
Currently: college students, high school
students, and young professionals
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Marketing Strategies
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Focus on authenticity [7]
Word of mouth
Opened up its platform to developers [8]
Customizable yet visually consistent
profile pages [9]
Enables communication between
Facebook users and non-users [10]
Internet Strategy

Digital Distributor
• Enables acquaintances to stay in touch
• Reaggregates services such as e-mail, event
invitations, and the sharing of pictures and
videos
Successes
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General growth

User engagement
• More than 40 million active users [11]
• More than 200,000 new registrations per day [11]
• An average of 3% weekly growth [11]
• 6th most trafficked site in the United States [12]
• 2nd most traficked PHP site in the world [2]
• Most used people search engine on the web [11]
• One of the top 20 search engines on the web in
terms of number of searches [11]
Successes (continued)

Applications

Facebook Platform
• #1 photo sharing application [13]
• Over 2,000 applications built [11]
• More than 75% of the members have used at
least one application [11]

Competition
• Growing three times as fast as MySpace [14]
Viability of Facebook

Promising if
• Continue to focus on being a “social utility”
• Continue to listen/respond to customer
feedback
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Potential pitfalls
• Too many advertisements
• Too many features
• Too many unnecessary e-mails sent to users
What Facebook Does Best
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Respecting people’s privacy
Facilitating communication between
people
Listening/responding to customer
feedback
Constantly adding new features
Informing users of the latest updates
Effectively posting advertisements
Suggested Improvements


Decrease or limit publicized personal
information
Make the visual presentation of profile
pages less of an eyesore
References
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[1] http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?timeline
[2] http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?factsheet
[3] http://www.facebook.com/press/product.php
[4] http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0/interview/facebook/2006
[5] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1640380,00.html
[6] http://www.techrunch.com/2007/07/06/facebook-users-up-89-overlast-year-demographic-shift/
[7] http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1644040,00.html
[8] http://developers.facebook.com/
References (continued)
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[9] http://facereviews.com/2007/07/06/facebook-growth-trends-behindthe-numbers
[10] http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0/interview/facebook/2006
[11] http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
[12] http://www.facebook.com/jobs
[13] http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/115/open_featureshacker-dropout-ceo-facebook-numbers.html
[14] http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1644040,00.html