Benefits of Social Software - Coursework Example

Social software Social software refers to the tools that allow people to freely interact amongst themselves while in business circles, it allows interaction between the company and its clients. It therefore assists to strengthen the existing behavioral patterns and ties amongst the users. It allows persistency in structure thus strengthening what would otherwise have been informal amongst users. It is also referred to as Enterprise 2.0 and it assists in the enhancing of collective knowledge amongst its users. It also includes social extensions and collaborations that provide sharing of information and interactions. The social software industry offers different capabilities such as shared spaces, document sharing, wikis, blogs, reputation management and location of people. One of the benefits of the social software industry is that people can be able to create, share and refine information in a more flexible manner in their social circles without having to go through the top down approach. The social software industry represents a web environment that allows people to share and aggregate both professional and personal information by providing applications that provide documents and filter connections amongst users. It also presents content, support multimedia activities and also allows proper and efficient communication amongst the users. These social networks attract huge subscribers and thereafter avail opportunities for people who share the same demographics, events and ideas to come together (Meyer, 2008). The environment that the social network operates is normally described as both the internal and external environment. The internal environment consists of collaboration, discussion, the basic social networking practices, organization of information and how the networking should be done so as to meet the demands of the customers. The external environment consists of the branded customers, the user interactions, collaborations with partners and any professional networking that is involved. The environmental analysis is usually very important as it assists in selecting of products to be offered in the market and it also assists in determining any particular networks strengths and weaknesses. Some of these social sites emphasize on extranets whereby they support the security of information and transfer of information amongst the users while others emphasize on large scale deployment and engagement amongst the users. There are many tools that are being offered for the software applications which include both communicative and interactive tools. The tools for communication often handle the handling and capturing of information while the interactive tools handle information between the users. From a sales point of view, the internet has been able to stimulate new ideas because of its ability to gather intelligence on existing companies and their products. It has also assisted organizations in acquiring comprehensive information on people who can assist in sourcing and also in account management. Companies are also taking advantage of the fact that they can hire professionals through the web. The social software industry has also been in the forefront in influencing activities in the human resources department through recruitment, performance management and compensation and also for planning activities. Some networks such as Facebook and linkedin have changed the recruitment techniques while websites such as wikis offer collaborative efforts in making of company policies. IBM is a company that has successfully installed the wiki for its operations (Meyer, 2008). The social software has also provided collaborative support technology through collaborative devices such as the portal, business applications and also specialized clients. With these kinds of services available, a company is able to avail intracompany and intercompany integrations, personal digital assistants (PDI), screens in vehicles and also in mobile phones. The impact of these collaborations thus will be felt more in organizations with industry and cross organizational boundaries. Due to the development in this industry, it is now possible to do communities marketing which allows the user of internet facilities contribute ideas and it also allows marketers to find out the needs of customers. It includes blogging, customer review entries, confirmation through the word of mouth and chatting facilies, podcasts and applications through the list servers. The information that marketers gather can be used for promotions, advertisements, measuring of customers’ satisfaction through feedback channels, branding and product campaign management as well as for future planning of the products and services offered. It has also been used as a powerful tool to influence the customers’ behavior in terms of their purchasing powers. Idea management is a process that has greatly benefited from the emergence of the social software industry. It involves coming up with programs that generate new ideas in more innovative ways that are not possible under the normal circumstances. It thus has analytical tools for analysis purposes, tools for managerial purposes and it also includes all those who participate in provision of information. These programs are used in coming up with innovative ways of improving sales which would ultimately increase the revenue generated. It allows the organization to segregate ideas according to their sources and types of ideas and it also involves the ability to bring together different ideas together. The tools that are used in idea management therefore assist the management in publishing of campaigns so that they can get a wider coverage as well assist in refining or building already existing ideas while acknowledging the receipt of valuable information. The social software industry is fast moving from a general purpose to providing more targeted items such as engines, market predictions and it answers the demands of its users. There are risks of organizational clashes as the industry does not follow the top down approach but the benefits of the industry as far above the obstacles. It has offered unification between communication and collaboration and this has offered users the ability to send instant messages, get involved in video conferencing while sharing a whiteboard together. Conclusion The growth of the software industry has had a significant impact to both individuals and also organizations. It has allowed companies to have wider market coverage and also the cost of marketing has gone down as the chain of distribution is usually shortened and there is direct communication with customers. It allows people to be more innovative as well as giving people an opportunity to work together. Facebook This is a private social networking site that was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 and it provides networks that facilitate the connection of people allover the world. According to a report released by ComScore Mediametrix, it has over 9 million registered users and it is ranked as the seventh most used social site in the United States. Its headquarters are based in Palo, Alto Calif.Its major competitors include MySpace, Goggle, Yahoo, Twitter and Bebo .It offers application facilities such as personal profile, the wall, inbox, uploading of pictures, groups and events. SWOT analysis is a business technique that is used by organizations so that the organization can be in a position to identify its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats posed to the business. It helps the organization to maximize on the opportunities and strengths while trying to reduce on the threats and minimize the weaknesses. Therefore, it is important to employ this technique so that facebook can be in position to determine its position in the market. Strengths Face book has notes that usually allow two people who are communicating to get into conversations. Any person who has a blog has the ability to get their post automatically and immediately connect with friends who can comment on it immediately without much hustle. This goes straight to the wall feeds and you can thereafter comment and get updated on any topic you would prefer without having to go to the post. Face book has the ability to create a profile badge that one uses on the website that shows a person’s current status and information and in itself it serves as a business card. It attracts people to be both your business partners and friends. It also allows people to share videos, video chats, post cards and photos with one tab while another tab allows the users to use other features and this kind of service is not available to software’s such as Skype (Moore, 2009). Another important feature that face book has is the fact that it has a clean layout and a very simplified profile page. The advantage of this kind of layout is that it is very easy to use hence people are attracted to it as compared to other social sites. It allows people to click direct to their friends profile and immediately after you can get easy access to their walls. With this kind of easy access, you automatically get what you need to do and get instant replies from your friends. Also with this kind of design it is possible to highlight the user’s current information and the user is able to control and have a sense of ownership.The new design allows the feed technology and walls to integrate thus allowing users to share comments, photos and videos .It also allows third parties the option of viewing other applications on it. Due to the integration of the wall and the minifeeds into one feed, it occupies more than 70% of the space on the profile and as a result, it focuses more on creating and maintaining relationships. The integration has also seen face book develop many settings and wall filters so that many posts can be made and also one can be in a position to see the specific items selected for them. It also allows for tabbed browsing whereby, it is usually divided into tabs such as personal information, educational background and professional background hence easy to use. This division is very convenient to the users as it allows people to load different profiles for their different needs without wasting much time therefore making facebook very fast. Facebook has a very strict set of rules and regulations whereby the company has the ability to control the advertisements that are likely to be put up and they also have the capacity and ability to control how the user information is going to be used. They also have their privacy settings which can only be accessed through the privacy links. This setting allows people to specify who should access their profile, who is entitled to search for their information and it also controls the information that should be available. It also allows one to disclose some information while hiding others. For example, while disclosing your date of birth one can disclose the day and month but choose to hide the year of birth and while your stating your current address, one can chose to hide some information for example you state the city but not the street .Again, one can also choose to post a photo of oneself which is not a headshot to be viewed by others without posing oneself to the danger of people trying to falsify your photos (Malik, 2007). Initially facebook was criticized because of not allowing their customers to delete information from their profiles if they felt the need to delete it. Users were not allowed to permanently deactivate their accounts and if one attempted to do so, the information would not be available on the profile page but it would be stored in the servers, but as from February 2008, facebook removed the deletion clause from its company policies and now the users can easily and readily delete the information from their profile page. Weaknesses When it comes to connecting, facebook does not connect automatically but it has to get approval first from people concerned in order to connect them while other software’s such as twitter are automatic and they allow one to get automatic connections without wasting much time. With other software’s, one can only post one photo or an icon but face book encourages people to disclose so much information about themselves .Although the interface used by face book is simple, using it is usually cluttered and heavy with too many applications, many photographs  and advertisements which in most cases will cause disillusionments amongst its users (Malik, 2007). The management of face book has not been quick to address issues and complaints that have been raised by their clients. They have quite often been accused of being very hard and tough with their customers by bullying them instead of listening to them and addressing their concerns. At one particular time, one of the senior mangers was quoted saying that listening to customers’ demands is just a waste of time. While working with facebook, it is imperative that to note that all the information that others have posted on it may not be correct. Facebook is not in a position to verify whether the information posted is correct or not. The only thing that they are able to verify is your email address and therefore, people have been cautioned against giving their details to people they actually don’t know in real life. Due to the open nature of facebook, quite often, they have been banned in many Arabian countries such as Syria and Iran. The Government claims that this site has often been used to criticize and oppose the government and it provides a leeway for the formation of opposition movements. The Syrian authorities also banned it because they feared that the people from Israel would invade their social sites and use the site for their own selfish interests. There also so many employers who are not ready to give their employees access to facebook as they view it as hindrance to peoples performance (Havenstein, 2009). Threats Facebook is increasingly under attacks from spammers and sphisters. These pose a lot of potential risks to its clients due to security concerns. According to Max Kelly who is the company’s chief security officer, he concurs that there are increasingly incoming under attacks from threatening elements. They have been exposed to threats such as edge of network attacks and phisphing against users. Under normal circumstances, these attacks come in the form of e-mails which the attackers claim that they come from facebook yet the source is not facebook but the spammers themselves. Other dangers posed to facebook include the SQL and the Cross Site Scripting (CSS) attacks. To avoid harvesting by data spammers, Facebook has put up so many steps that one has to go through so that they can get the data and they insist that it may not be viable for any spammer to go for that data (Hansell, 2007). . It has often been facing lawsuits from Marks former classmates who claim that facebook stole their source codes, business plan and their intellectual property. They also accused Facebook of giving the wrong valuation figure while they were getting into partnership with Microsoft but facebook was quick to respond by saying that the valuation was only meant for Microsoft (Havenstein, 2009). Opportunities. Facebook has marketing tools that assist it to get information from the potential clients. The examples of such tools include polls and surveys where by they interview people on what they would like to see in the market. With the results, they are able to test the market to find out if whatever they want to invest in will be a viable project with good returns. Therefore, data is collected and then it goes through the analytical stage and afterwards the analyzed data is used for the decision making process. The data collected is also used by the investors to find out what the preferences of the potential customers are (Hansell, 2007). The face book pages have become a lot more easier to search as they have a flag on them that is yellow in color that allows people to place advertisements and with these features they have the opportunity to grow as people are always looking for new things through advertising while companies are looking for strategic places where they can place their advertisements .This software has also been working together with other services for example , face book has a facility known as face book connect that allows various users to access media facilities such as the Digg.With this kind of facility, it allows people to connect regardless of any other site that they may be using at any particular time. It allows people to connect into the web directly using the facility. Therefore, if one is already logged in, it just asks for authorization and henceforth one connects to the web immediately .Thus, with such information such as gender and location it is easy to import data without using the profile page of a third party. It involves the use of the full web therefore making the web a central place to use. The facility thus allows people to connect more without interruptions as full members of face book and not as outsiders. Therefore, there is more transparency and a delivery of high quality services. It also becomes easier to identify goods that are either of low or high quality (Arrington 2008) Another important feature of face book is that it has power structures that make it easy for people to be easily recognized and identified faster by potential business partners, friends and even potential employers. It becomes easier to share thoughts, ideas and messages with greater influence offered by facebook. Due to access to so much information that is available, it offers an opportunity to filter information available to a few people .Once the filtration takes place, people gain confidence on what they share and see and if any changes occur people also get the confidence they can be updated on the changes that have been made (Arrington 2008). In order to capitalize on their extensive customer base, facebook has decided to focus more on market research rather than on the sales that they make by using engagement advertisements. This will allow third parties to have access to specific demographics using polls and surveys. These advertisements will also allow the multinational companies to select some specific members of facebook for any research project that they would wish to undertake and by gathering market intelligence, they would be able to find out if their products are appealing to the potential customers. Another strategy that is being pursued by Facebook is the collaborative strategy whereby, Facebook and Microsoft intend to collaborate in the marketing and advertisement field. This is aimed at attracting more advertisers in facebook through innovation. With Microsoft’s latest technology and facebook being a very unique social site, they hope to be more innovative and therefore attract and appeal to more people into the site. Microsoft will provide the banner advertising methods through their digital solutions by using graphics and automated text based advertisements and with time they hope they will be in a position to change the customer’s behavioral patterns (Arrington 2008). As compared to Goggle which is using the open sourcing strategy, facebook is using the private based strategy. According the report that was released by ComScore, the traffic in facebook increased by five fold as compared to Goggles that increased double. This is because Goggle tries to personalize data while Facebook encourages people to give as much information as possible about themselves and therefore they are able to make more informed decisions and creating more contextual information. For example, at facebook, they are able to know who your friends are, where you stay and also one’s current status. Another great opportunity for facebook is the ability to use the facebook platform that allows the open outsourcing of projects. This facility allows other social networks to be more compatible with facebook such that application developers can take the applications and run them with any other network. For example, Bebo allows third parties to make applications on Bebo and what that means is that it just needs to map its API on the facebook platform. Conclusion Despite the many challenges that facebook is facing it continues to grow and it has allowed its users to interact freely .It has also been used successfully by companies to reach a wider market for their products. References Arrington, M 2008, Facebook to Open Source Facebook Platform, viewed 1 may, 2009, . Hansell, S 2007, Google’s OpenSocial Is Not a Facebook Killer, viewed 1 may, 2009, . Havenstein, H 2009, Facebook facelift targets aging users and new competitors, viewed 1 may, 2009, . Malik, O 2007, Why Is Google Afraid of Facebook?, viewed 1 may, 2009, . Meyer, D 2008, Security Strategy Facebook under attack: The spam and phishing threat, viewed 1 may, 2009, . Moore, CT 2009, The Future of Facebook Revenues, viewed 1 may, 2009, . . Read More