Drs. Lucca/Vasileiou
29 October 2010
“Facebook, Changing the World of Social Networking”
It only took a 19 year old expelled from Harvard to change the world of Social Networking. But, what makes Mark Zucherberg’s creation of Facebook any different than any other online social network? Aren’t Myspace and Friendster just about the same thing? Although all similar in the aspect of socializing, exchanging media files, and meeting people virtually, Facebook has managed to take the entire social experience of college and everyday life and put it online, changing mass media and communication for the entire world.
Although Facebook has a misleading upbringing (created in the dorm room of a drunken teenager), we can’t exactly be fooled by its unappealing origin. The basis of the network came from Zucherberg’s first experiment called “FaceMash” (Kaplan). The website was designed for the humor of his classmates and his own, where students were able to rate other undergraduate students by appearance. Of course, this was malpractice on Zucherberg’s part, where he was charged with breaching his school’s computer system to attain the files required for the website, causing emotional stress to the classmates who were put on the site, and immediate expulsion (Kaplan). It was not so much the sole popularity of the site that Zucherberg found enticing (22,000 hits in just 2 hours (Mezrich), but the fact that its popularity had grown in such little time because the people on the site were people that all knew one another personally. People had the ability to contact their actual real-life friends over the internet (Mezrich).
The Facebook’s (its former name before being changed to “Facebook”) most outstanding feature compared to the other social networking sites is its functionality and user base. Unlike other social networks, Facebook profiles are hidden unless you are logged into the site, are friends with the person, or edit your privacy settings; as opposed to Myspace where profiles are open to the public unless settings are altered (O’Hear). The website was created to help people share information in a safe and secure manner, or as Zucherberg says himself: “A lot of the challenge was just making it so that people were comfortable having a page [on the internet] at all.” (“Press Open Door 2009”).
However, just like the world of popularity and the fashion industry, the internet world went through a lot of drastic changes and “latest fads” since 2004 and up until the present day. The use of the site became more based on what was happening at the current time and how people were able to convey it in that instant. Seeking to find a solution to the need, co-founder Chris Cox came up with an idea: “Wouldn’t it be really cool if for every single person in this graph [the social graph of the Facebook community] you could summarize what was going on for them and deliver it as a personal newspaper every day, at any moment in time, perfectly up to date, assembled by exactly the set of people that you care about?” (“Press Open Door”). That’s when Facebook launched the world’s first ever “News Feed”. The News Feed is a wall that streams everyone’s information or current “status” as soon as they post it up onto your personal homepage. This allowed Facebook users to gather information much more efficiently and rapidly, instead of having to visit a person’s individual page. The impact of the creation of the News Feed was such a huge success that other leading companies like Twitter (in terms of pace of information moving very quickly) were adapted after it.
Facebook’s growing number isn’t solely based on a speedy stream of information, but in the types of ways users are able to use the site. The site is made for all sorts of mediums which are sorted through a “fans” and “friends” option, unlike Myspace or Friendster, where everyone is set under the same standards. This allows people to differentiate between just how deep and different these sorts of relationships are, whether it’s someone trying to convey a message to the public, or someone looking for a chat with friends from school. These connections can branch out as far as the president of the United States or just around the corner and to your grandmothers; being sure to accommodate everyone to their utmost comfort and needs, as Chris Cox states: “People want small audiences, people want large audiences. They want tight privacy control, they want to reach everyone. They want to share photos; they want to talk about the election. Or they just want to talk about what they just had for breakfast.” (“Press Open Door 2009”).
Because of the flexibility of communication Facebook gives users, Facebook has invited companies from all over the world to be a part of their system; being the first social network to incorporate this type of media into their website. Although Myspace has similar options like these where they promote unsigned bands, Facebook just doesn’t include fan pages for music and company advertisements, but fan pages for small businesses, and nonprofit organizations like the ASPCA and The Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign (Facebook). This sort of commercialism allows companies to reach out prime targets and connect with more than 500 million potential customers. Extending flexibility and ease further still by allowing companies to synchronize their search (if wanted) to specific age groups, locations, and interests (Facebook). Doing this, Facebook is able to “build a world where people are living amongst each other even though they are far apart’” (Cox). Bringing everyday shopping, community service, and communication to your fingertips.
Aside from being able to present an audience with clothing, goods, or an organization in the English language, Facebook has the capability of translating the website to a language of preference. Although all languages are not offered yet, (They have recently translated the website into Hebrew and Arabic) Facebook offers a variety of languages to insure fast, easy, and reliable communication. It is most probable that Facebook is not the first social network which provides a selection of languages (Myspace, Friendster, Twitter, and other social networking websites happen to obtain this ability too), but is one of the networks with the widest range of selections; making communication and exchange of media only that much faster and easier for those even outside of the United States.
Although probably not the first in changing communication towards language, Facebook is the first social network to promote communication by starting online communities called “groups”. These types of groups are made by the people, and for the people, and are unlimited in variation and topic. One of the most popular is called “Scribd”, an online book club that lets people communicate in the interests of books. Scribd allows people to read together, share articles, form book clubs, get book recommendations from friends, and even debate and discuss new books and stories. 55,000 items are streamed over Scribd every day, including projects handed out by teachers, book publishings by authors, famous chefs exchanging recipe cards, and hobbyists who are looking for all types of manuals (Facebook). With groups created by Facebook like Scribd, friends and people from all over the world can read and share documents together, making it easier to get insight and recommendations through help of your friends; something Myspace and Friendster and other familiar sites have not been able to achieve.
Facebook has in fact had such a strong impact on a society that they have also launched a recent application called “500 Million Stories”. The application allows users to post up collections of stories they’ve shared about the impact Facebook has had on not just their friends, but their very own lives. Through this, people are allowed to share their own stories and read thousands of others, categorized by themes and locations all around the world. Facebook has helped millions of people like: “Ben Saylor, a 17-year-old high school student, who turned to Facebook to organize a community effort to rebuild the Pioneer Playhouse, the oldest outdoor theater in Kentucky, after it was damaged by floods in May.” And “Holly Rose, a mother in Phoenix, who credits a friend’s status message telling women to check for breast cancer with her being diagnosed in time to treat the disease. She used Facebook for support during treatment and became a prevention advocate herself.” (Facebook).
Mark Zucherberg and the creators of Facebook aren’t the only ones who sought out to change the world through communication, but other figures in history have also; One of the most popular being Marshall McLuhan. Marshall McLuhan was an educator and scholar whose work generally consisted of the study of media theory (“Regent University for Communication and the Arts”). His work is viewed by many, (including Zucherberg and the Facebook team) as one of the cornerstones of media theory; having practical applications in advertising and television industries. Employers at Facebook use McLuhan’s famous expression “The medium is the message” as a motivator to keep helping the world connect in different types of ways (“Press Open Door 2009”).
Although Facebook’s greatest factor has brought many great changes to the internet world in regards of most anonymity being executed and helping people share more and more information, its greatest factor has also been its greatest downfall. As opposed to Myspace, Twitter, or Friendster, some Facebook users feel that Facebook gives much more information than it generally should. Unlike the sites mentioned previously, Facebook has options where users can include their employment and educational information and has also recently launched a new application called “Places” (Facebook). The application (with use of a cell phone or mobile device) is designed to let users tell their friends where they are and vice versa, making it possible to track and give away a person’s location at any moment in time. This can prove as a dangerous tool if let fall in the wrong hands, and while a percentage of the social networking world think its fun to chart their travels around town and the world, another percentage think it's a sign of online predatory appeal (Gaudin).
Analyst Dan Olds, as quoted by Journalist Sharon Gaudin says "Would you want a wide number of people to know that there's no one home at your house?" Olds asked. "And, couple that information with Facebook posts about how you put your dog in a kennel while you're on a two-week trip, that's just too much information to put out there. Many people think they're only sharing it with their friends, but they have to assume that they're sharing it with anyone who can access their friends' computers or Facebook accounts." (Gaudin). While Places can be an entertaining tool, no one should use it without considering the consequences of some location information getting out past their immediate circle of friends (Gaudin).
Another criticism associated with applications like Pages that concerns privacy advocates is that the applications are launched to users using opted-in settings which are set up by default. This means that applications similar to these are running automatically, rather than allowing and giving users the decision to run it in the first place (Gaudin).Users can sometimes go unaware and unannounced to applications that are set up by default, causing bewilderment when something goes wrong or attention is drawn to the matter. It is also critiqued that turning off the settings that are on by default aren’t as easy as it seems, as Guadin states: “opting out isn't just a simple matter of clicking on a "no thanks" kind of button. Shutting off Facebook Places is a multistep process.”, where she then proceeds to demonstrating the steps she had to take to changing and altering the settings Facebook had by default to her own personal preference in her article.
Unfortunately, adaptations to the internet like social networking never follow their original course. Different factors, such as the speed of information, the amount of it portrayed, or privacy control towards it, affect their outcome. Yet, just because there are slight differences between the people who use it, it doesn’t mean that Facebook cannot be appreciated for its unique qualities and the way it has changed mass media and communication.
Citations and Reference:
Gaudin, Sharon. "Facebook Places just too much information? Here's how to opt out." Reuters (2010): 2. Web. 29 Oct 2010.
Kaplan, Katharine. "Facemash Creator Survives Ad Board." Harvard Crimson (2003): n. pag. Web. 17 Oct 2010
"Marshall McLuhan." Regent Uiversity, School of Communication and the Arts. Regent Univrsity, n.d. Web. 29 Oct 2010.
Mark, Zucherberg, Perf. The Social Network. Dir. David Fincher." Perf. Jesse, Eisenberg. Columbia Pictures: 2010, Film.
Mezrich, Ben. The Accidental Billionares- The founding of Facebook. NY: Anchor Books, 2010. Print.
O'Hear, Steve. "Research: Myspace and Facebook are different class." Social Web n. pag. Web. 17 Oct 2010.
Press Open Door 2009." Mark Zucherberg Facebook. Web. 17 Oct 2010.
Zuckerberg, Mark. "500 Million Stories." The Facebook Blog. Facebook, 6/21/2010. Web. 18 Oct 2010
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