lunes, 14 de junio de 2010

Facebook take two

Today, Facebook is one of the most popular social networks in the Internet. Created by Mark Zuckerberg in 2005, today Facebook has more than 400 million users in its worldwide network. Google and Microsoft have been interested in putting their hands into this website but in the end it has managed to find its way through to stay independent.

People from all nationalities, genders, ages and interests use Facebook. This platform offers a network where anyone can sign in and start connecting with friends to share photos, messages, wall posts, gifts, games and applications. Friends can follow up each other’s activities through their posts in their walls and photos.

A lot of information is posted in the website regarding all kinds of interests and preferences of its users. All this information according with the legal agreements signed by all users is property of Facebook. The use of this information for commercial purposes has raised concerns in its users in terms of privacy issues. Although this has become a general problem in mainly all the social networks available today, the threat is bigger in the ones with the most influence in the net and with great potential of commercial revenues through advertising. Many users have opted to terminate their accounts, others reduced their activities but many others are not aware of this risks. Time will say how privacy will affect the performance of Facebook but in the meantime it is definitely an issue that sensible for the company and will affect the way they plan their future steps in the evolution of their business model.

The future of Facebook in the next couple of years is promising. It has a network full of profiles, updated every day with information about its users that can be exploited commercially in many different ways. Giants as Google and Microsoft have been interested in this potential market. Its users spend hours every day in this portal accessing many of its pages opening all the possibilities that can be used for directed advertising that is of great value to all companies eager to sell and advertise products through internet.

I really look forward to se how Facebook will evolve in the following years and how it actually take advantage of its potential streams of revenue.

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