Monday, November 07, 2011

The Facebook Monopoly

There are hundreds of social networks in the world, but no one knows who inevented websites such as Lifeknot or Skype. No one knows Tom from MySpace's last name. todya, no one even uses myspace. No one uses any other social networks today. Google Plus is supposed to be Facebook's heavyweight competitor, but so far, it has been a first round TKO. Not one of my friends has a Google Plus account and i have never even seen a Google Plus pagee. But why has Mark Zuckerberg been so successful with Facebook? Why has he dominated the social network scene? To me, this situation is similar to the NFL vs USFL. NFL was obviously the monopoly, similar to Facebook, and the USFL represents all other social networking sites trying to compete. The NFL had the best players, but what does Facebook have to offer that other sites don't? their technology is better only because they've put more money into it, which any company could do. To me, the reason Facebook is as popular as it is is because it came out at the right time. The reason so many people use it is because everyone has one. The more users a site has, the more users it will gain, which is exponential growth. Facebook has grown so muc, it's become impossible to compete with because people don't need any other sites. If all your friends are on Facebook, then it makes no sense to use another site because all of your goals can be accomplished through Facebook. That is the biggest reason Facebook is and will continue to be a Monopoly.

1 comment:

Bo Fette said...

This is "game theory" at its best. "Everyone" has a Facebook because everyone has a Facebook. The only way things could ever change is if people at the top of the chain (aka the popular kids) broke off into another social media and then the trickle down effect would occur. If I remember right, Facebook was originally for college aged kids who broke away from Myspace. This was followed by the trickling up and down of age groups from jr. high to senior citizens.