Facebook Faces Up - Essay Example

Facebook, the social networking website, originally began life as a way for college students both nationally and internationally to network with each other. In fact, as proof of a college affiliation initially, only users with an email address ending in .edu were allowed access. Now since May of this year, anyone can join. Experts feel that this has left a gap in the marketplace for specific college-only blogs and social networking sites, which is quickly being filled “And that’s where three ventures by young alumni—CollegeOTR.com, CollegeTonight.com, and CollegeWikis.com—hope to come in.” (Facebook Faces Up, 2008) Facebook has increased its user base by opening admission to all: “In June, 11.5 million of the individual visitors to the site were 35 or older, more than double the number a year before, according to market researcher ComScore Media Metrix” (Facebook Faces Up, 2008). Now at 33 Million subscribers total Facebook’s worth has been estimated between 1 and 4 billion dollars. However, the increase in size has contributed to more site downtime and possible problems with security that are slowly being addressed.

Analysis and Evaluation: In analyzing Facebook’s position in the marketplace, as table 1 on the next page shows, there are some critical factors for the company as well as its competition to be explored. Facebook is the number two site for all social networking websites as of April 2008. While MySpace is certainly dominating the field it has not grown as dramatically as Facebook has. More recent numbers, as stated above, have put Facebook even closer with 33 million subscribers since opening its doors to all users in May.

Furthermore, according to most reports, college-age users that have currently been using Facebook do not seem to be switching services any time soon. While other companies are attempting to fill the college niche market, they have not successfully created an easier-to-use platform with as much Web presence as Facebook. However, as this table reveals and many analysts agree with, LinkedIn is quickly increasing its user base and with some changes in its website structure and presence, may soon represent some valid competition for both Facebook and MySpace.

Recent refusal to partner with Google, Yahoo1, and others may only be strategies to increase their worth to those companies. Still, at this point, their position may be weakening as Google attempts to launch its version of a similar site which Zuckerman attempts to address. 

Later in the same article, the analysis is made that the real concern is: “data portability land grabs by Facebook, MySpace, and Google” (O’Hear, 2008). Securing that information is the real value of any company and keeping that information proprietary is the key to their business. However, if MySpace decides to blink first and allow Google or Yahoo! To partner with either of them, FaceBook may be left well behind.