CASE # 3 What is Facebook?

Facebook is a social networking website intended to connect friends, family, and business associates. It is the largest of the networking sites, with the runner up being MySpace. It began as a college networking website and has expanded to include anyone and everyone.
Facebook was founded by 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and originally called thefacebook. It was quickly successful on campus and expanded beyond Harvard into other Ivy League schools. With the phenomenon growing in popularity, Zuckerberg enlisted two other students, Duston Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, to assist. Within months, thefacebook became a nationwide college networking website.
Facebook users create a profile page that shows their friends and networks information about themselves. The choice to include a profile in a network means that everyone withing that network can view the profile. The profile typically includes the following: Information, Status, Friends, Friends in Other Networks, Photos, Notes, Groups, and The Wall.
Users are able to search for friends and acquaintances by e-mail address, school, university, or just by typing in a name or location for search.



2. What are the disadvantages and advantages of facebook?
Advantages
· Allows user search for new and old friends
· Accessible to chosen universities having a high level of security
· Makes it less awkward when communicating with strangers or people you are not familiar with
· Love attraction - can be used as a dating service system
· Makes it easier to join groups having similar likes and dislikes
· Allows members to check students who are taking the same class, living within the same area, or coming from the same academy

Disadvantages
· Overcrowding
· Weakening long distance relationship
· Unsupported by physical adjacency
· Contributes wide-range procrastination
· Rampant addiction
· Stalking is possible
· Acquaintances be labeled as friends.

3. What are the characteristics of facebook and why many people engage?
1. True friends list: Gaming can now happen exclusively within the context of one’s actual friends. Multiplayer games no longer suffer from the Catch-22 of requiring friends to be fun while new players always start the game without friends.
2. Free-to-play business model: New players need not shell out $60 to join the crowd. Consumers don’t like buying multiplayer games unless they know that their friends are all going to buy the game as well. Free-to-play removes that friction.
3. Persistent, asynchronous play: Finding time to play with one’s real friends is difficult, especially for working, adult gamers. Asynchronous mechanics, however, let gamers play at their own pace and with their own friends, not strangers who happen to be online at the same time.
4. Metrics-based iteration: Retail games are developed in a vacuum, with designers working by gut instinct. Further, games get only one launch, a single chance to succeed. Most developers would love, instead, to iterate quickly on genuine, live feedback.Many people engage facebook because they can meet or find more new friends in other country. they can make their self enjoy because of the different games found in facebook.

4. Can we use facebook in E- commerce? Why?
Yes, we can use facebook in E- commerce, because facebook talking much about social media marketing here at Get Elastic, blogging, podcast, viral videos and so on. There are Shopping Engines, Social Shopping / Bookmarking, Deals and Coupon Sharing, Online Retailers, User Developed Fan Apps, E-commerce Service Providers.


5. How important facebook in society today?
Fecebook is very important in the society today in terms of gaining friends, entertainment of different games online. It has a great help for E- commerce because it has features like Shopping Engines, Social Shopping / Bookmarking, Deals and Coupon Sharing, Online Retailers, User Developed Fan Apps, E-commerce Service Providers for business online.