Future Web War and Facebook



Executive Summary2

History of Facebook3

Sean Parker3

Microsoft bought shares3

Facebook and brothers Uinklvossy4

Facebook App Center4

Initial Public Offering (IPO)5

Business Strategy applied by the Facebook5

Porters' Five Forces Model7

Rivalry among competing firms (High)8

Barriers to enter for new competitors (High)8

Potential development of substitute products (High)9

Bargaining Power of Suppliers (Moderate)9

Bargaining power of buyers (High)10

Business Model of Facebook10

Management of Facebook12

Board of Directors12

Financial Health of Facebook13

The potential Problems faced by the Facebook16

Issues on Privacy17

Data Mining17

The Inability to Freely Terminate Accounts17

Frustration18

BCG Matrix OF Facebook Inc.18

SWOT Analysis of Facebook20

Strength20

Weaknesses20

Opportunities21

Threats21

Battle for Social Media Dominance21

Recommendations27

References28

Appendices31

Future Web War and Facebook

Executive Summary

Mark Zuckerberg is the founder of Facebook; it is one the most successful and even most influential social networking website in the history of human kind. A social networking website provides platform where people of various backgrounds, regions, age groups and professions come to share their views. Each user makes personal profile and shares his basic information with known or unknown public. In addition, this platform is widely used by the business community, Non-Profit Organizations (NGOs) and various educational, political and religious institutes. These organizations are using this platform for the sake of popularity, updating their followers, branding and advertising their goods and services. According to the Business Insider, facebook has some 1 billion registered users. In United States (U.S), 67% internet users have facebook account. In European Union, this penetration rate is about 82%. According to the officials of facebook, Canada has the highest number of active users, 19 million. The majority of them is using second screens e.g. tablets and mobile phones, for using it. This figure is based on the fact that they at least log onto facebook in a month. On average, everyday some 300 million images are uploaded and users left 3 billion comments and like pages. This huge user baser along with continuously increasing number of users, customers and partners is making Facebook the leader of Future in Web Industry.

History of Facebook

The history of facebook had begun in 2003 when its founder, Mark Zuckerberg wrote a script of Facemash website. Facemash allowed the users to compare photos and give them a rating. In starting this website got success but it suddenly went down because pictures were stolen from Harvard database and there was barrage of legal cases. After that, Zuckerberg start work for greater project where people could communicate with each other. Ultimately, he established thefacebook.com and emailed Harvard students for the registration. He got positive response from the students who also uploaded their photos.

Sean Parker

The entry of Sean Parker is considered to be a landmark event. Sean Parker had experience in the social networking website (Friednster.com). He quickly realized the potential of thefacebook.com and offered his services to the Zuckerberg. He was the first investors as well as first the president of thefacebook.com. First of all he changed the name of website from thefacebok.com to facebook.com and then introduced many changes in the user interface. He also the first person who made facebook as the private company and introduced it international ...