FACEBOOK
‘IF YOU HAVE A COMPUTER, YOU’RE PROBABLY ON FACEBOOK.
YOU’RE NETWORKING WITH FRIENDS, ADDING PERSONAL DETAILS,
STORING YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS & CELL PHONE NUMBER,
UPLOADING PICTURES, AND MUCH MORE’
Emlyn Jacoby
Facebook
 Is a social networking website launched the 4th of
February 2004.
 Is a free-access website that is privately owned
and operated by Facebook, Inc.
 Users of the SNS can join networks organized by
city, workplace, school, and region to connect and
interact with other people.
 The websites’ name refers to the paper facebooks
depicting members of a campus community that
some US colleges give to incoming students,
faculty, and staff as a way to get to know other
people on campus.
History of the Company
 Mark Zuckerberg founded "The Facebook",
originally located at ‘ thefacebook.com’, on 4th
February 2004 while attending Harvard University
as a sophomore.
 The company dropped The from its name after
purchasing the domain name ‘facebook.com’ in
2005 for $200,000.
 Membership was initially restricted to students of
Harvard College, and within the first month, more
than half the undergraduate population at
Harvard was registered on the service.
History of the Company
 In March 2004, Facebook expanded to Stanford,
Columbia and Yale. It expanded rapidly when it
opened to all Ivy League schools and gradually
most universities in Canada and the United States.
 In June 2004, Facebook moved its base of
operations to Palo Alto, California.
 Facebook launched a high school version in
September 2005.
 Facebook was then opened to everyone, 13 years
and older with a valid e-mail address on 26th
September2006.
How Facebook was Funded
 Fall 2004: $500,000 from Peter Thiel (a co-
founder of PayPal).
 May 2005: $13 million from Accel Partners.
 April 2006: $25 million from Greylock
Partners.
 November 2007: $60 million from Hong Kong
billionaire Li Ka-shing.
Management Team
 Mark Zuckerberg (CEO / Founder)
 Dustin Moskovitz (Co-Founder / Programmer)
 Chris Hughes (Co-Founder / Promotional)
 Eduardo Saverin (Co-Founder / Business)
 Andrew McCollum (Co-Founder / Graphic)
 Sheryl Sandberg (COO)
 Matt Cohler (Product Management)
 To date Facebook has 700 employees.
Things you need to know !!!
 The terms can change any time
 Personal use only
 A single, individual user account
 You’re giving up a HUGE license
 Applications are NOT guaranteed safe
 Disputes are arbitrated under Delaware law
 You surrender all submissions
 Privacy is NOT guaranteed
Facebooks’ Competitors
 MySpace
 Bebo
 Hi5
 Friendster
 Tagged
 Reunion.com
 myYearbook
 Classmates.com
Marketshare
Explosive growth in 2006
Social Networking Sites
 Facebook is the second
largest networking site
with 42million active users
 Facebook is now the
fourth-most trafficked site
in the world
 Between June 2006 and
June 2007 growth elevated
to 270%
 Since Facebook has
expanded registration to
include users outside the
US number of active users
has doubled
Jun-06 Jun-07 Change %






MySpace
Facebook
Hi5
Friendster
Orkut
Bebo
66,401
14,083
18,098
14,917
13,588
6,694
114,147
52,167
28,174
24,675
24,120
18,200
72%
270%
56%
65%
78%
172%
International Reception
 Facebook has developed a strong following in




English-speaking countries only.
There is far less growth in Europe and Asia as
the website is only available in English.
Facebook’s growth in Europe mainly stems
from the energy created from the UK’s.
Facebook has not had much success in
Germany to date.
Facebook has only just recently secured a foot
hold in France since 2007.
Closer look at Reception
European unique visitors
Jan 07
July 07
% origin
internet audience
218,063 224,759 3% EU

MYSPACE
20,341 25 ,176

Skyrock Network 11,327 13,785
22% FR

BEBO
7,461
12,101
62% UK

FACEBOOK
2,066
10,795

HI5
6,979 9,554
37% US

PICZO
7,557
6% US

NETLOG
8,140 7,450
8,035
24% US
422% US
-8% BEL
 A third of the Canadian
population has joined
Facebook as of June 2007, a
growth of more than 3,000% in
a year.
 The United Kingdom is the
third largest country with more
than5 million active users.
 There were 42,000 members in
the France network in June
2007, and now there is more
than 127,000 which is a growth
of 300%.
Advertising
 Facebook generates revenue from
advertising.
 Advertise through banner ads and referral
marketing.
 Banner Ads:
 placing an advertisement into a web page that
attracts traffic to that desired web page.
 Referral Marketing:
 is gaining new customers through word of mouth.
Features
 There are many features for users to interact with
each other such as, walls, pokes, photos, and
updates on personal status.
 Over time they have added, news feed, notes, and
just recently a live chat messenger.
 24th May 2007 ‘Facebook platform’ was launched
to provide a framework for software applications
to interact with those core features.
 Among the Facebook platform, new features
included gifts, marketplace (ads), events and
videos.
New facebbook platform
 With the launch of the Facebook platform, Facebook
has been touted as an online Social Operating System
 Developers build their own applications that lets
them keep all their revenues they generate from the
exploitation.
 The success of an application is highly dependent on
the application’s virility and its user base.
 There are different ways of making money with these
application:
 Promoting third-party applications
 Selling advertising space
 Attracting sponsors
 Selling online services
 Selling products
Revenue Streams
 Facebook generates revenue through display ads
that makes up most of its current revenue
through an advertising deal with Microsoft.
 Facebook Flyers contribute as it allows users to
design their own ads at a price valued to how
much they are viewed.
 The sponsored groups seems to be the major
potential source of future revenue ($300,000 for
a 3 month presence) many companies are
already present such as Nike, Victoria’s Secret, …
 Limited edition gifts are for sale at a low price.
What made them successful ??
 Facebook used an open source platform.
 Open source platform - allowing anyone to create an
account and submit widgets to be used on the site.
 By allowing anyone it creates a greater sense of a
community that encourages developers to actively
participate in the sites upward mobility.
 Facebook has and is rapidly becoming a tool for any
businesses that are, can, and should be using to
increase its growth through selling more and staying
connected to their target markets.
 The great news is the service is free unless they
choose to participate in paid ads as all target users
with ads are based on massive amounts of information
people have revealed about themselves on the site .
Using Facebook for themselves
 Businesses find contacts
 Businesses can connect with prospects, clients,
competitors, potential partners and the gate
keepers for their prospects in a non threatening
fashion.
 Creating expert status
 For businesses this is the perfect place to create
visibility and become recognized as the expert in
their field. A strategy that would include
consistently showing up and providing relevant
postings in their area of expertise can only expand
their reach.
Using Facebook for Themselves
 Target marketing Users of Facebook share demographics,
psychographics, and techno-graphics about
themselves that in the past you would have paid a
lot of money for. Businesses can also use paid ads on
Facebook that allow them to only market and
promote to their identified target market.
 Optimizing search engines
 Facebook is indexed for the search engines. Pages
are used for business profiles and should be shared
with their fans which allows the businesses to
accumulate as many fans as they can.