Tuesday, 10 December 2019

Blog 2.

What is a Business Model?

 The business model can be defined as a method of doing business by which a company can generate revenue to sustain itself, or more simply explored by Kopp as "a company's plan for making a profit" (2019).

 Straight away this can be seen as problematic.

 How does Facebook make money?

 At first one may think social networks like Facebook must not make much revenue due to it being a free platform for users. At first the revenue was poor, however, throughout the years, Facebook has developed their financial tactics to increase their revenue through the use of advertisements.
Image result for facebook revenue 2019
 Figure 1. Nicole Blanckenberg, 2019.
Facebook: Friend or Foe?

 Facebook gaining their revenue from advertisements causes issues. Facebook receives revenue from advertising companies and in return sell their users information, such as their usage patterns to the advertisement companies. Ever wonder why one moment you might be browsing for Christmas presents and then once logged into Facebook you are bombarded with present ideas via adverts? It is because Facebook are selling your usage patterns.

To some this is seen as a betrayal of trust and privacy, whilst others may see it as understandable, they give us a free platform to do what we please, what's the harm in a few ads popping up every now and then? Some, however, feel differently as they wish to access their account freely, without the fear of their information being sold which could and did cause legal issues. Is that too much to ask? In fact, in October last year "approximately 30 million accounts" had been accessed by hackers which "included contact details, locations, birthdates and search histories" (Heller, 2019). This alone is frightening enough and it is simply just one example of legal issues Facebook are dealing with which my report explores quite well, in my opinion.

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Blog 3.

What is Innovation?

According to Rouse, "Business innovation should improve on existing products, services or processes; or it should solve a problem; or it should reach new customers" (Rouse, 2017). I did not use this definition for innovation in my report but I should have because it is the most simple and accurate definition in consideration to Facebook.

Image result for libra
Facebook's innovation was through a cryptocurrency being developed as part of their digital business, called Libra. Libra is being created in order to improve Facebook's popularity considering that after all the controversies the popularity began to decrease. It shall also be an improvement of an existing service known as Bitcoin. However, they are “different in a lot of ways, from the technology behind them to the way they’re used” (Browne, 2019).


Is it too late to save Facebook?

The key problem with the innovation of Libra is trust. With so many discrepancies and controversies surrounding Facebook's online security, the issues are inevitable. People are beginning to remove themselves from Facebook due to their lack of trust. What are the chances people will allow them to deal with their money? They have tried to improve Facebook's image, however, perhaps an innovation that demands trust from the users is not the best way to go.

Image result for libra vs bitcoin graph
Figure 1. Strauss, 2019.

Another issue with the innovation is all the competitors that follow it. It is not just Bitcoin that Zuckerberg must compete with. These competitors consist of: "Apple, WeChat, and Google [who are]... making inroads into global finance” (Lacey & Levy, 2019). In fact, after Libra was announced, big competitors like Bitcoin actually become more popular and successful overnight, making a lot of money (figure 1). I did not realise this reaction to Libra by other companies, my report discusses that Libra was interesting to people, little did I know that at the same time Bitcoin’s interest clearly rose. Facebook becoming a competitor just made Bitcoin more successful- the irony.

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Friday, 6 December 2019

Blog 1.

Introduction

Through the use of these following blogs, what shall be explored is the digital business of online social networks, in particular Facebook. I have already previously written a detailed report on the matter but for those who do not have time to read that can simply read these Blogs as a quick summary of my points, plus new points seeing as new information came to light since my submission.

The blogs shall first introduce the concept of social networks to then venture into a quick overview of the origin of Facebook exploring the first challenge the digital business was faced with. In due course the blogs shall also convey the business model of Facebook, the challenges they face both in legal discrepancies as well as the loss of users due to the loss of trust. There are also further conflicts within the digital business with their innovative ideas that are planned to commence within the next couple months. All this shall be explored with some of criticisms of my own work.

Online Social Networks

The online social networks was created during the web 2.0 era. The Web 1.0 generation was a very basic internet where the usage was primarily through websites in order to access published content. With the creation of Web 2.0 came social networks, where users could begin to, instead of accessing published content, they could generate their own content. It is believed that “the Web 2.0 concept had an almost messianic view of harnessing social networking for business goals” (Hosch, 2009). As social networks develop, upgrade and improve inevitably the internet needed to also. Henceforth, the creation of Web 3.0, increasing the user generated content further, was due to the popularity of social networks like Facebook increasing.
Image result for web 1.0
Figure 1. https://www.f5buddy.com/basic-definitions-of-web-1-0-web-2-0-and-web-3-0/ 
Facebook

 The Social Network Facebook was created by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004. Originally the social network was entailed to allow university students to converse with one another to help each other with assignments, lecture details and so forth. However, after Zuckerberg had graduated he realised there was a larger platform he could explore on a greater scale. This scale being the rest of the internet sphere. This may sound very accessible, however he did set a minimum age limit for users at 13. The way this was monitored was through users having to put their date of birth when creating an account. Of course this is not a very preventative measure, seeing as it does not take a genius to put a fake birthday. Regardless, it was done for good reasoning, yet poorly implemented highlighting from the very start that there were problems surrounding Facebook. Little did they know, having underage users would be the least of their problems. My report did not discuss this issue, which perhaps it should have to highlight that issues did not occur recently, yet from the very start conveying that online security was always an issue, not just a new development in the digital business sphere.

Image result for facebook



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