Introduction
The idea of using the internet as a means of creating social networking websites has become a very popular idea since early 2000, but they seem to come and go as trends among a much younger demographic of internet users. There seems to be one social networking site that continues to rise and is reaching out to more than just young teenagers. Facebook, a popular social networking site, was created with the idea of engaging college students, but it is now changing everything about social networking. With the convergence of several different technologies, this website only continues to grow more and more in an effort to reach multiple generations around the globe.
In this paper, we will look into several different key areas of Facebook. We will begin by looking into the history of this website and see how one idea has seemed to change the internet. We will also discuss the current state of the art in the area of social networking sites and specifically look into Facebook and how it is changing to adapt to more users. The next area of interest, we will be looking into Facebook’s current applications. We will look at how all the uses of Facebook (Networking, E-mail, Chat, Photos, Games, etc.) are being adapted and used in real world situations.
The next part of our look into Facebook, we will discuss how this website fits into the three aspects of the information systems triangle. First, we will look at how people are affected by the use of Facebook and what is being done to solve certain issues. Then we will look into the process behind Facebook. After that, we will then discuss the technologies that are being used for Facebook and how they all work together.
History
The history behind the beginning of Facebook actually can be credited to a small website called Facesmash. In late 2003, Mark Zuckerburg was a sophomore attending Harvard College. One night he was trying to find a way to get over his girlfriend, since she had just broken up with him earlier in the night. He was at his computer and decided to compare pictures of his girlfriend to pictures of other women. He then came up with the idea of comparing two photos of people that attended Harvard and post it online to have people vote on who they thought was more attractive. Mark Zuckerberg hacked into the databases for 9 Harvard dorm buildings and took the I.D. pictures of the students and some of their basic information. He then compiled them into a website he named Facesmash. Due to the lack of an online student directory for Harvard students to visit, this new website allowed them to view and get information on other class mates. Within the first 4 hours, the Facesmash website had 450 visitors and over 22,000 picture views. After a few days, the Harvard administration found out about the website and had it shut down. Mark Zuckerberg was charged with breach of security and violating individual privacy, but these charges were later dropped. This idea of an online database only continued to intrigue Mark and other students.
The following semester, Mark became inspired by an article in the Harvard Crimson (the school newspaper) talking about the idea of an online database where students could contact and share information with each other. Mark began writing code for this website and on February 4, 2004 he launched a site called TheFacebook.com.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thefacebook.png)
This site was limited only to the Harvard student body and, by word of mouth, the site’s popularity began to grow. Within the first month of launching the site, more than half of the Harvard undergraduate student body was registered on the website. The popularity continued to grow and in March of 2004, TheFacebook spread to the campuses of Stanford, Columbia, and Yale. Eventually by mid-2004, TheFacebook was open to almost all universities and colleges in the United States and Canada. Students within a certain college were able to join on their college’s network for TheFacebook and were able to contact other students at their college and other colleges on the website. In early 2005 TheFacebook purchased the domain facebook.com for $200,000 and the new name was Facebook. By September 2005, high school networks were allowed to join and so were business networks. The popularity began to grow so much that by September of 2006, anyone over the age of 13 with a valid e-mail address were allowed to join.
As seen by the chart below, Facebook is becoming one of the most popular social networking websites in the United States.
(http://scyuen.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/240/)
State of the Art
Facebook has almost unlimited uses. It can keep you connected with friends and family, distribute quizzes to help people determine who they think is better at certain things, provide a platform where people can share photos and video, and the list goes on and on. Facebook has over 300 million active users, 150 million who log on any given day. Of all these users, over eight billion minutes are spent online, which averages out to 106,838 years per day is spent on Facebook. This also averages out to about 27 minutes per person, which does not seem like all that much, but when you take into consideration that some people are only on for a very short time, this means other users make up that time by spending countless hours online while at work, school, or out and about by using their cell phone.
The cell phone has become a very popular method of checking and updating your information on Facebook. The Iphone and the Blackberry have become 2 of the most popular cell phones that allow their user to use the internet and keep everyone up to date on what they are doing. These phones have their limitations though. Depending on the phone the internet, and ultimately Facebook, may not be possible when in rural, unpopulated areas. But when in big cities or while at big events, photos can be taken with the phone and instantly updated to your Facebook profile.
This website allows people to chat, comment, and interact on posts made by other people. But before you can start commenting, you have to become friends with people. The friend adding process in not very difficult, since all that is needed is their name, address, or affiliation. After you have added people in the network, either from your school, work, or other social group, you can start interacting with them.
What makes Facebook so unique is the over 350,000 applications that are available to its users. These applications can be created by anyone and are only limited to the creativity of the producer. Even though they take some effort to get to work correctly, many people and companies have mastered this process. Some of the biggest producers are Zynga and Playfish. Zynga is a company that has produced some of the most popular games on internet, leading to over 200 million monthly active users. These games are mainly simulation games, which are games that portray real life situations while really being acted out on the computer. Take FarmVille for example. This simulation allows users to maintain a virtual farm by planting and harvesting crops. It also gives the user the ability to add their friends to the game which helps the original user out by giving them extra rewards per every friend. Some of the key features to these games are that each user can look to see what everyone else is doing, so that they can improve on their own game play. But one question has to arise: How are they able to make money on a “free” internet game? The answer is quite simple. The producers make the game so that anyone with a Facebook account can participate, but in order to get the full gaming experience and to have access to more money or experience points in the game, real dollars are spent for each enhancement. It might only cost five real dollars to get one million play dollars in the game, but there are thousands of people out there who want to be the best in the game and will do almost anything to achieve that. If that feature was not added on to many of these games, it would take much longer and a lot more effort to reach the peak of these games.
People
The convergences of all the technologies of Facebook have and will continue to have an impact on society and the way we use technology. The people aspect of the information systems triangle refers to the connection, usage, and the impact of technology in our everyday lives around the world. Some of the major ways Facebook affects people is the training, management, and socially.
When we talk about society’s relationship with technologies, we must remember that the tech boom started in the early ‘90s and even then it was not as wide spread as it is today. Today, people all over the world are connecting in ways that would have been unimaginable fifty years ago such as being able to sit at a desk and virtually chat with someone thousands and thousands of miles away being able to hear and see them through a computer screen. Technology is changing rapidly and as new generations grow so does the normality of using technology to connect to people and share photos or videos. This fast adaptation of technology has brought with it new and exciting platforms to use such as the creation of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace and is quickly changing in and of itself. For example, the accessibility and usage of Facebook has increased since they allowed anyone to join the free site even if they do not have an .edu emailing address. However, Facebook is far more popular with the young generation because they are more accustomed to using technology which means that older generations would need training or a way of learning how to use Facebook to enjoy this new technology and its many convergences.
The training that would be needed to use Facebook would include learning how to set up a profile, add photos or videos, updating statuses, and the concept of communicating by writing on other people’s walls. First of all, the easiest step is to join the Facebook community because it is free and all that is needed is an email address. Once signed up, a profile is needed to give friends a sense of what are some interests, hobbies, favorite movies, and so on. The convergence of being able to store and organize photos on the web is clearly demonstrated through Facebook and it is becoming very popular because it allows friends to be tagged in a photo or to share photos with others around the world. Facebook also helps people who just start out using the site by giving those suggestions and tutorials on how to do things such as adding photos or updating a profile so training is quite easy. Today many organizations have groups on Facebook that help keep members informed on activities and connected to each other so many older generations are beginning to use Facebook to keep organized and informed instead of relying on emails. All in all, not much training is needed to use Facebook because it is easily accessible in terms of having tutorials and suggestions to help along the way.
Another effect of Facebook on people is on the management whether it is security, privacy, or even on the workforce. Since Facebook is an online application, there is the risk of security whether it is a hacker or a virus so it is very important for people to manage what they put on the internet. An example would be that if a friend puts a picture of you on their profile that you do not approve of, everyone can view and share that photo unless you take action and delete it or make sure the account settings are secure. Managing a profile and making sure information is secure, is becoming an increasing hot topic for discussion today because so much can depend on what can be seen on the internet. For example, you go for a job interview and the interviewer pulls up your Facebook profile and sees everything about you. Now, if your account has privacy settings there would not be a problem because only friends would be able to view your profile. However, say that you forgot or did not really pay attention to setting account privacy and the interviewer does not think you would fit in with the company with what they could see from your profile. Facebook is costing people jobs and opportunities because people do not manage their online information and security. However, there is the other side to the argument to where should people be allowed to express themselves as they wish on networking sites such as Facebook and not face repercussions just because an employer is nosy and wants to see your profile? The safest bet is to take into consideration the fact that this is the internet and people should learn more about what technologies are really out there and that there is the threat of not knowing if your information is secure or not.
Obviously, as a social networking site, Facebook has a profound effect on the social aspect of people in the information systems triangle. Facebook, in essence, is a virtual world of creativity and convergences such as being able to chat with a friend in real time or easily send photos or videos that will show up on a friend’s virtual wall. This is having affect on the social part of society because instead of verbal or written communications, almost everything is being done through texting, emailing, tweeting, or the idea that you can write a message on a wall that everyone can see and add to it. Even Facebook has gotten somewhat emotional with the fact that an expression of liking a person’s status, photo, or video can be done with the click of the mouse on the “like” button. The technology has also expanded to include applications such as Farmville or Mafia Wars where there are more virtual worlds within the social networking site itself. It seems there is no end to the possibilities and worlds that can be entered all through a computer and social interaction has been affected by it. But, can this be a bad or a good thing because verbal and in person interaction is decreasing and on the other hand networking and opportunities can be reached through the click of a mouse. People are connecting with each other from across the globe and are able to share ideas and creativity with each other that has never been as easy as it is today with Facebook being global and available in various languages.