Facebook: Strengths, Weaknesses and Reasons for Success - Essay Example

? Facebook: Strengths, Weaknesses and Reasons for Success Facebook: Strengths, Weaknesses and Reasons for Success Facebook is currently the most popular and used social networking website by people all around the world. The innumerable social networking features and functionalities that Facebook currently provides to its users determine the strengths, weaknesses at some points and reasons for it to become a huge success. The word currently has been emphasized because Facebook, since it came into being, has gone through a number of changes in its interface layouts, features and functionalities. Strengths and Weaknesses of Facebook The strengths and weaknesses of Facebook will be discussed under the headings of: interface design layout, social networking features, real-time functionalities, sharing of information, privacy issues and spamming applications, bugs and transition every six months. Interface Design Layout: Facebook has a clean, readable and interactive interface which attracts users. The interface is simple and easy to understand and use. For example, when you click on a friend’s profile page, you can directly see his wall; hence, you become quickly acquainted with their recent activity and can write them a message. The interface design of Facebook is not crowded . Every thing is well aligned and separated. For example, the advertisement portion on Facebook is always aligned on the right corner of the web page unlike mySpace where advertisements are crowded all over the web page. (Chapman, 2008). The interface design layout of Facebook changes every six months in order to fix any layout issues that the users had complained about regarding the previous layout. In this way, Facebook tries to keep its users satisfied. However, some users do not appreciate the regular change as they feel that they had just started liking the present interface and adjusted to the use of it and now that it had changed they needed to get acquainted with it again. They also complain that the new look; though fancy, comes with new bugs and new problems. Furthermore, as Facebook has removed features such as custom skins for application, use of bumper stickers and the like, it has made personalization and customization on the part of users harder. They complain that their profile pages no longer remain unique. (Chapman, 2008). Social Networking Features: Firstly, an individual can get connected to their families who are living far away and long lost friends. Facebook allows an individual to search for his friends and family members who are already a part of Facebook and get connected to them. It has a strong searching functionality available. If any friend has not joined Facebook yet, they can be invited to do so. Secondly, an individual can make new online friends. In this case, Facebook allows its user to see some information on the profile of other users so that he can either reject or accept a friend’s request in accordance to whatever he prefers. Thirdly, Facebook also gives a blogging capability under the Notes tab. In this way, a user can make himself heard as he can share his ideas with the friends he is connected to and his friends can post comments on any of his notes as a feedback to his ideas. Fourthly, Facebook allows chatting capabilities like any other chatting application. This way, users also get to enjoy a real-time experience. (Veer, 2011, p. 4). Real-Time Functionalities: Along with the chatting feature available, which is a real-time feature, Facebook has turned the posting of comments functionality into a real-time experience. Furthermore, the facebook search for different things such as friends, communities and others has also become real-time in nature. For example, when you are just typing your query in the search input box, a list of matching results are displayed before the search button is pressed. (Martin, 2009). Sharing of Information: This aspect of Facebook has positive and negative effects. People tend to share their information through status updates, photos and videos which are beneficial as far as information is being shared as people can view and post their comments on them. But this information can be misused as some people are biased in nature. Privacy Issues and Spamming: Facebook is one of the social networking website that has the most powerful and a secure privacy settings personalization. A user can hide his photos, status updates, wall and any other feature from the friends in his list with whom he does not want to share. However; it has changed some of its features and restricted users from some kind of privacy personalization. Such as previously, it allowed you to remove the ‘add as a friend’ option from your profile page for everyone, but now this option is restricted to be available for friends of friends. As Facebook has many competitors and enemies, the hackers produce spamming applications to hurt and annoy Facebook and its users. These are like worm viruses that make Facebook weak. (Veer, 2011, p. 221). Transition Every Six Months and Bugs: Facebook tends to change the look and feel and add or remove features of its website approximately after every six months. Some people appreciate the change as they feel that their complaints regarding previous design has been solved. Some people do not favor these changes as they feel reluctant in adapting to the new features. New features and interface design also brings bugs with itself. However; Facebook tries to remove those bugs as soon as possible but until then that period becomes frustrating for the users. Reasons for Success of Facebook Treadaway and Smith write in their book how social media has become of increasing interest to the people of this world. They write that in a study done by Harris Interactive in April 2009 revealed that 48 percent of American adults had either made a Facebook account or mySpace account. And the users of Facebook increased within eight months from the study that took place from 100 million to 200 million users. (2010, p. 16). In the field of social media, Facebook is on the top. This is because Facebook can be used for marketing, recruitment, brand enhancement and prospects which are professional uses other than the sharing of personal information only. Its interactive interface and social networking features has made it popular even though there are some drawbacks but they are not enough to degrade its popularity. Facebook is popular because it utilizes all the human-computer interaction principles that focus on user requirements, what user needs and what user wants in terms of interface interaction and features and functionality. Facebook users would surely increase more in the future until there comes and equivalent competitor. References Chapman, Ian. (2008). Facebook S.W.O.T [Internet]. Available from: < http://holographiclife mapping.blogspot.com/2008/08/facebook-swot-part-2-weaknesses.html > [Accessed 28 May, 2011]. Martin. (2009). Facebook Adds More Real-Time Functions [Internet], Tech News. Available from: < http://www.rlslog.net/facebook-adds-more-real-time-functions/ > [Accessed 28 May, 2011]. Treadaway, Chris & Smith, Mari. (2010). Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day. Indianapolis, Indiana, Canada, Wiley Publishing. Veer, E. A. Vander. (2011). Facebook: The Missing Manual. 3rd ed. United States of America, O’ Reilly Media Inc. Read More