Facebook Platform: The Dawn of Social Computing: Industry Report

Facebook Platform: The Dawn of Social Computing

Product Type: Market Research Report
Published by: Generator Research Limited
Published: October 2007
Product Code: R625-805

Description

The first part of this report explains what Facebook Platform is and what it offers to developers, service providers and brands. Particular attention is paid to the platform’s role as a new, super-efficient distribution channel for digital content and services.

The report then explains how Facebook has managed to greatly improve the efficiency of a conventional viral distribution process throughout a social graph by cleverly embedding several ‘viral booster’ mechanisms deep inside the user experience. The report then explains why and how others can benefit from this effect by re-engineering their own social graphs.

The report next identifies four major limitations of Facebook Platform by analysing the gap between what the platform currently offers and market demand that will increasingly come from developers, niche social networking sites, internet websites that include social networking features and others whose businesses are based on social graphs.

Next, the report explains why and how this demand would be best fulfilled by a new platform for ‘social computing’ that worked across multiple social networking platforms, like those offered by Facebook and MySpace, and different types of social data. The report explains why Facebook and MySpace are unlikely to be able to perform this role themselves.

The report concludes by examining some of the implications of an open social computing platform by considering:

The role of service innovation within a service provider;
The resilience of the internet portal model;
The emergence of P2P-based social graphs;
Impact on the distribution of digital content;
Mobile service development and mobile operator portals;
Facebook’s emergence as a replacement for the web browser.

Table of Contents

FACEBOOK PLATFORM: Application Programming Interface (API); Mass Distribution Function; Conventional Viral Distribution Process; Viral Distribution within the Facebook Platform; Key Point: Opportunity; Monetisation Environment
LIMITATIONS: Proprietary; Current Reality: Incompatible Platforms; Market Requirement: Platform Independence; Platform Licensing; Current Reality: Facebook Platform not Licensable; Market Requirement: Licensable Platform; Weak on Social Data; Market Dynamics; New Growth: Emerging Social Networking Markets; Limits to Growth: Facebook; Saturation of the Application Market: User Overload; New Distribution Channel, but Limitations
TOWARDS A COMMON PLATFORM: Market Demand; Analogy: Desktop Operating Systems; Need for a Common Platform; Competing with Partners: Application Developers; Market Development; Market Expansion: New Sites, New Services and New Applications; Inter-graph Features
MARKET IMPLICATIONS: We Design vs. You Design; Portal Model; Extension to P2P; Media Distribution; Mobile; Facebook: The New Bowser?

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