CA2: RJ1

One factor contributing to Facebook’s success today, I feel, would be its ability to quickly and easily connect people to the people they know.

Tools like “friend recommendations” and “mutual friends” allow people to find their friends easily. It just takes a click or a search to find friends and loved ones. And the wall makes it especially convenient for people to share and find out everything that is happening in their friends’ lives.

The efficiency and ease of sharing and finding information quickens connections and, I feel, it is connections that drive the social network.

In the movie, Mark Zukerberg pointed out the importance of connections. When he launched Facebook he knew he had to get the cool kids in first as they had the most connections and influence. He also pointed out that if the Facebook was to crash for even a day, people will start leaving the site and because the social network is driven by connections, it would cause a domino effect - when one domino goes, the other dominoes go.

My church organizes small mission trips to Cambodia. We support a group of kids there and build relationships with them while we’re there. However, we wanted to stay connected even when we’re back in Singapore and knew that the only way to stay in touch was through the internet. And because most of us were already on Facebook, this influenced the kids to use Facebook to connect. And ever since they’ve been on Facebook, because of their connections in Cambodia, they have influenced many of their friends to join Facebook.

The ease of sharing and finding information, however, also gives rise to privacy issues and unethical conduct.

I think the other factor that has contributed to Facebook’s success would be ‘learnability’. Facebook’s interface is simple, clean cut and easy to navigate. It’s easy for persons of any demographics to adopt. In a way, it makes it easier for everyone to be ‘in’, to be able to connect through this platform.

The kids do not have the luxury of using the internet every day. They have got limited access to the internet and they’d have to travel miles from their village to visit a cyber café to gain any connectivity. They are not very familiar with the latest technology, but ever since they joined Facebook, they’ve turned into avid Facebook users like us. They got a hang of Facebook within a few days and this goes to show the ease of adopting Facebook.

‘Learnability’ is crucial for any social networking site, especially when consumers have got a whole range of social networking sites to choose from. When it comes to technology, people always prefer familiarity and user friendliness. This helps capture the masses and not just the fast learners, which is especially important for social networking sites.

I guess one example of unethical use of Facebook would be using it to cheat on a final examination. Mark Zuckerberg posted on Facebook a painting, which he was to write a report on, and got people to comment on it.

In a way, that was unethical use of Facebook as he was getting ‘answers’ for his final examination. However, it can be argued that that wasn’t really cheating. It was merely gathering other people’s opinions as information for his report. And it was actually pretty smart of him.

I feel that there are many ways to engage an online community ethically and I suppose setting up groups on Facebook to promote a good cause would be one way.