Homework Question on Facebook’s Growth
- Review Facebook’s Brief History and answer each of these 3 questions separately in 2-3 pages including further internet research along with your personal opinions:
- Do you feel that Facebook has focused too much on advertising opportunities and revenue, and has therefore harmed their brand and ethical reputation? How can Facebook improve its negative perceptions?
- In what way do you think Facebook’s growth around the world has both helped and hurt its ability to protect the privacy of its users? What are the costs and benefits to Facebook and its users?
- Despite various criticisms, Facebook continues to grow exponentially. Have Facebook users become too ‘hooked’ on social networking and are therefore, willing to have their privacy sacrificed? Also apply our guest speaker from Lieberman Worldwide Research concerns and suggestions with your research and opinions.
- Note: all research must include resources, documentation and footnotes using APA format. Please answer each question separately indicating the question number.
Homework Answer on Facebook’s Growth
A Decade of Turbulence in the Social Network
Introduction
The introduction of Facebook was, at first, a humble and ordinary experiment for the founders, in a limited learning environment. Its initial focus was basically to profile students and staff at the institution of Harvard. The founder of this platform, then 23 year old student Mark Zuckerberg, was caught up in the unexpected, overwhelming popularity sweeping through the university population within a span of hours.
The idea of comparing faces of two-by-two personalities seemed to be interesting, and thus, Facebook spread its wings across to other universities in the US, Canada, and eventually in the UK. To date, 10 years after the launch, Facebook has a user population of over 1.23 billion users. The site began with a genuine motivation – to serve a confinement of a university’s environment, it has taken totally variant outlooks, never again to resemble its initial intent and purpose.
Is Facebook focusing too much on advertising opportunities and revenue?
Facebook’s metamorphosed trend leaves so much to be desired. The platform seems to have sacrificed its reputation for monetary advantage. Though the administrators beg to be understood that subscription is free of charge and therefore the only source of revenue would be through advertisement, still this excuse is not convincing enough. One would query the ethical status of this platform since there seem to be no criteria and standards in advertisement.