face book project

8/9/2019 Face Book Project

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A STUDY ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION ATTAINED

FROM THE USAGE OF FACEBOOK APPLICATION

BY

J DINESH

MAAMALLAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

MAAMALLAN NAGAR

SRIPERUMBUDUR-602105



ABSTRACT

The dawn of internet has been one of the greatest creations of mankind in the modern world which has evolved day by day.

And this internet has unleashed many sources especially for the

purpose of communication with people located in different localities. One

of such unleashed communication sources is the outbreak of chat rooms.

There are many chat rooms available from the dawn of internet which

has been competed by one another. Though it was for the purpose of

communication, due to the outbreak of different chat rooms, these chat

rooms seem to have entered into the service market competing with one

another.

The report is based on service marketing strategies implied in

marketing a particular product. This product has reached the peak within

a very short period of time penetrating through the market.

Within a period of five years face book has peaked the service

market, moving its competitors aside.

This report is about a research based on service quality of the

product viz face book.

This report provides information regarding what differentiates face book

from its competitors and the quality of the services rendered by it.

In this research, quality is going to be ascertained on the basis of

the level of satisfaction attained by different customers.

Hence this study is based on the responses given by the respondents to

the questionnaires asked.

In this study questionnaires are be asked through the face book

application itself. Here I myself am an active member of the face book. Sogetting responses has been made easier for me. The questionnaires

prepared are being posted in the option known as wall in face book where

people can view this option in their wall and can comment easily. Hence

their time is not being consumed much for this study. Hence people when

they login, they can find it in their newsfeed screen in face book.



And for the purpose of an effective study, I had taken into

consideration the responses of the respondents of those who are not a

member of face book. However they are being clearly knowledged about

face book in order to get a proper response.

In this study, majority of the people are well aware about this productand another important fact is that majority of the respondents are

teenaged people.

The sample size in this research is chosen at random from a population

which exceeds beyond borders in billions.



INTRODUCTION

In general consumers are known as the king

of capitalist economy.

The vital reason for existence of many things like competit ion ,

development, research, the very existence of the enterprises and

products is mainly for the purpose of customer satisfaction.

An enterprise or product which lacks customer satisfaction is sure to fall.

Customer satisfaction, a business term, is a measure of how products

and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer

expectation. It is seen as a key performance indicator within business and

is part of the four of a Balanced Scorecard.

In a competitive marketplace where businesses compete for customers,

customer satisfaction is seen as a key differentiator and increasingly has

become a key element of business strategy.

There is a substantial body of empirical literature that establishes the

benefits of customer satisfaction for firms.

However attaining this customer satisfaction is a tough job as it differs

from consumer to consumer and from time to time.



OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:

Primary objective:

The overall objective of study is to assess the

customer awareness situations in face book and its direct effect on

customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Secondary objectives:

i. to identify and analyse the service quality and communication

activities for creating customer awareness on merchandise activities

in face book;

ii. to study the effectiveness of strategies and communication on

customer awareness ;

iii. to identify the interventions for improving the effectiveness of service

marketing and customer retention;

iv. to identify the constraints faced by the customers in face book and to

suggest suitable ways and means to improve the sales.



SCOPE OF STUDY:

The study would enable the case firm to understand the

consumer profile, their preference regarding the application and

what they expect from face book on promotional communication. It

would also enable the firm to understand the customer awareness,

satisfaction pattern and problems encountered by consumers in the

application. The information on service quality gaps will be useful to

the case firm to identify specific or relatively important areas in

which consistent improvements are to be made.

This study also aims to suggest better strategies to be

adopted by the company for sustaining the existing consumers and

attracting new footfalls for enhancing the sales in their retail outlet.



CONCEPTS AND REVIEW

Review of related concepts and past studies will give a holistic picture and that

will in turn help us in analyzing and understanding the current problem in proper

perspective. An attempt will be made in this chapter to review the concepts and

to define the concepts that will be used in the present study. A review of the

past studies would also be made under here.

CONCEPTS

CUSTOMER

Stanton (1984) defined customer as an individual who consumes goods,

whether manufactured by business unit or created by nature such as air, water,

etc., and utilities offered by the government, business organizations like

hospitals, religious, educational and other voluntary organization etc.

Nagendra (1994) defined customer as a person who bought goods or

services for own use and needs and not for resale.

Cravens (1996) explained that customers represented people in families

and other kinds of households who purchased and used products and services in

order to satisfy their personal needs and wants.

According to Kotler (2000) customers included all the individuals and

households who purchased or acquired goods and services for personal

consumption.

Levy et al. (2008) defined customer as an individual who consumes

goods, and services of manufacturers or retailers.

In the present study customers are those who use the face book

application.



CUSTOMER RETENTION STRATEGIES

Paul (2004) stated that customer retention is conceptualized as resulting

from customer perceptions of service quality and customer satisfaction.

Tellis (2004) defined customer retention as aggressive branding and

promotions tactics used by the sellers adopting traditional marketing approach.

Nihos (2004) stated that market consists of all the potential customers

sharing a particular need or want who might be willing to and able to engage in

exchange to satisfy their need or want.

Levy et al., (2008) defined customer retention as approaches that

retailers use to retain their best customers.

In the present study, customer retention strategies are the activities

taken out by the retailers to satisfy the customers and achieve the target.

CUSTOMER EXPECTATION

Sciffman and Kanuk (1992) stated that customer¶s expectation was

usually based on familiarity and pervious experience.

Levy and Weitz (1992) stated that the customer expectations are based

on customer knowledge and experiences of customer with that particular stor e.

Kotler (2005) opined that customer expectations were formed by their

experiences word of mouth and advertising.

In present study, the expectation of the buyer was studied by lea rning

what they wanted from face book application, after considering the past

experience.

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Oliver (1981) stated that consumer satisfaction or dissatisfaction

is the outcome of consumer¶s subjective comparison of expected &

received product attribute levels.

Varshney and Gupta (2000) explained that satisfaction is a

person¶s feelings of pleasure or disappointment resulting from comparison



of a product¶s perceived and actual performance to his or her

expectations. So, consumer¶s satisfaction is a function of the product¶s

perceived performance and the consumer¶s expectation.

Kotler and Armstrong (2003) described customer satisfaction as

the extent to which a product¶s perceived performance matches a buyer¶s

expectations. If the product¶s performance is higher than expectation, the

buyer is satisfied or delighted.

Berman and Evans (2004) explained customer satisfaction is a

feeling that a product has met or exceeded the customer¶s expectation.

Kotler (2005) explained that the consumer¶s satisfaction or

dissatisfaction would decide the consumer¶s preference for the product and if he

was satisfied with the product, then he would exhibit a higher probability of

purchasing it again.

According to Levy et al., (2008) satisfaction is a post-consumption

evaluation of how well a store or product meets or exceeds customer

expectations.

In this study, customer satisfaction is defined as the function of

perceived performance of case firms and expectations from the

application.

CUSTOMER LOYALTY

Saxena (2002) explained that customer loyalty is an outcome of the

customer¶s faith or confidence with the company¶s offer. The customer believes

and continues to buy or select it for the reason that he/she sees it reflecting

his/her values.

Berman and Evans (2004) said that customer loyalty exists when aperson regularly patronizes a particular retailer that he or she knows likes and

trusts.

Levy et al., (2008) indicated that customer loyalty to a retailer means

that customers are committed to purchase merchandise and services from the



retailer and will resist the activities of competitors attempting to attract their

patronage.

In this study consumer preference referred to the reasons p referred by

the consumers to use face book application as compared to the competitors.

AWARENESS

Rogers and Shoemaker (1971) defined awareness as a function or a

stage of decision process when the individual is exposed to an innovative

existence and gains some understanding of how it functions.

Venugopal and Perumal (1991) defined awareness as the thing known

to an individual is presented as a cognitive domain. It is a pre -requisite for

adoption of innovation as this would enable the farmers to completely

understand the aspects behind a technology and also its relative adva ntages.

Supe (1994) awareness is the first stage of innovative decision process

wherein the individual is exposed to an idea but lacks detailed information about it.

According to Reddy (2005) awareness meant that the individual

just came to know about an innovation without knowing details of it.

Kotler (2007) opined that, the consumer becomes aware of the

innovation but lacks information about it.



REVIEW OF PAST STUDIES

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Bhave (2001) found that with better understanding of customers'

perceptions, companies can determine the actions required to meet the

customers' needs. They can identify their own strengths and weaknesses, where

they stand in comparison to their competitors, chart out path future progress

and improvement. Customer satisfaction measurement helps to promote an

increased focus on customer outcomes and stimulate improvements in the work

practices and processes used within the company.

Gomez et al ., (2004) in their study found that there are three main

antecedents to customer satisfaction in SERVICE MARKETING ie. customer

service, quality of different products & value for money.

Homburg et al ., (2005) in their study revealed that there is an

existence of a strong positive impact of customer satisfaction on the willingness

to pay.



INDUSTRIAL PROFILE

INTERNET:

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol

Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of

networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and

government networks of local to global scope that are linked by a broad array of

electronic and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast array

of information resources and services, most notably the inter-

linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the

infrastructure to support electronic mail.

Most traditional communications media, such as telephone and television

services, are reshaped or redefined using the technologies of the Internet, giving

rise to services such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and IPTV. Newspaper

publishing has been reshaped into Web sites, blogging, and web feeds. The

Internet has enabled or accelerated the creation of new forms of human

interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking

sites.

The origins of the Internet reach back to the 1960s when the United States

funded research projects of its military agencies to build robust, fault-tolerant

and distributed computer networks. This research and a period of civilian funding

of a new U.S. backbone by the National Science Foundation spawned worldwide

participation in the development of new networking technologies and led to

the commercialization of an international network in the mid 1990s, and resulted

in the following popularization of countless applications in virtually every aspect

of modern human life. As of 2009, an estimated quarter of Earth's population

uses the services of the Internet.



COM PRO LE



Facebook is a social networking website launched in February 2004

and operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can add

people as friends and send them messages, and update their

personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally,users can join networks organized by workplace, school, or college.

The website's name stems from the colloquial name of books given

to students at the start of the academic year by university

administrations in the US with the intention of helping students to

get to know each other better. Anyone age 13 or older can become

a Facebook user.

ORIGIN OF FACEBOOK:

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his

college roommates and fellow computer science students Eduardo

Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The website's membership was

initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other

colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It later

expanded further to include (potentially) any university student, then high

school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over. The original concept

for Facebook was borrowed from a product produced by Zuckerberg's prep

school Phillips Exeter Academy, which for decades published and distributed aprinted manual of all students and faculty, unofficially called the "face book".

The website currently has more than 400 million active users worldwide.

GLOBAL SCENARIO OF FACE BOOK:

According to the beta

news, ³Face book's global growth catapults it to #1 worldwide´

New independent data shows Face book enjoyed 153 percent growthyear over year, while MySpace remains essentially flat. The site's growth

is biggest overall outside of the US.

Overall, Face book attracted 132.1 million unique users in June,

compared to 117.6 million for MySpace, according to data from comScore



released this week. Another site that saw impressive growth was Hi5,

which doubled its unique user base to 56.4 million.

ComScore's data seems to indicate that the market for social

networking in North America has matured, showing only 9% year-over-

year growth. But that's not the case elsewhere.

Evidence of a large untapped global market can be found in the

66% growth rate in the Middle East and Africa, and 35% and 33% growth

rates in Europe and Latin America, respectively.

Facebook is another story. Its growth is led by Latin America,

which saw a eleven-fold growth rate: users jumped to nearly 12 million in

June from just over 1 million a year ago. Similarly, Facebook more than

quadrupled its user base in the Middle East/Africa and Asia Pacific regions,

and tripled it in Europe.

Non-US users now make up an overwhelming majority of Facebook's user

base -- 63%, in fact. This can likely be tracked to its efforts to localize the

site: It's now available in some 89 languages, contributing to faster

growth.

"By increasing the site's relevance to local markets through local language

interface translation, the site is now competing strongly or even capturing

the lead in several markets where it had a relatively minor presence just

a year ago," comScore's Flanagan said.

Facebook's competitors seem to be pursuing a different strategy when

dealing with international markets. Hi5 released tools to allow its users tolocalize the site into various languages, while supplementing it with its

own work in translating services.

MySpace is doing things much differently. Instead of expanding

everywhere and anywhere, it seems focused on developing markets

where there are not only latent users, but also ad dollars. The company

believes that this strategy is the more viable one for expansion outside

the US.

As very close followers of Facebook¶s growth and metrics, we atInside Facebook have been absolutely astounded by Facebook¶s

international growth in 2009 and 2010.

At the beginning of 2008, Facebook¶s international audience totaled

34 million people. By the first day of 2009, that number had

increased to 95 million ± making nearly 70% of the total Facebook

audience. Today, this number is well over 400 million.



Dozens of these markets are still growing at double digit rates

every month ± and for many, those growth rates are increasing.

Facebook¶s growth rate accelerated by at least 25% in 47 countries

in one recent quarter. Its quarterly growth rate more than doubled

in 28 of those countries.

Now translated into over 100 languages, Facebook has shown that

it can penetrate nearly one third of the entire national population in

multiple developed markets, and we expect this to be true of many

more countries in the near future.

THE STRIKE OF FACEBOOK:

Facebook received its first investment of US$500,000 in June 2004

from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, in exchange for 7% of the company.

[45]

Thiswas followed a year later by $12.7 million in venture capital from Accel Partners,

and then $27.5 million more from Greylock Partners.[45][46] A leaked cash flow

statement showed that during the 2005 fiscal year, Facebook had a net loss of

$3.63 million.[47]

With the sale of social networking website MySpace to News Corp on July 19,

2005, rumors surfaced about the possible sale of Facebook to a larger media

company.[48] Zuckerberg had already said he did not want to sell the company,

and denied rumors to the contrary. [49] On March 28,

2006, BusinessWeek reported that a potential acquisition of Facebook was undernegotiation. Facebook reportedly declined an offer of $750 million from an

unknown bidder, and it was rumored the asking price rose as high as

$2 billion.[50]

In September 2006, serious talks between Facebook and Yahoo! took place

concerning acquisition of Facebook, with prices reaching as high as

$1 billion.[51] Thiel, by then a board member of Facebook, indicated that

Facebook's internal valuation was around $8 billion based on their projected

revenues of $1 billion by 2015, comparable to Viacom's MTV brand, a company

with a shared target demographic audience. [52]

On July 17, 2007, Zuckerberg said that selling Facebook was unlikely because he

wanted to keep it independent, saying "We're not really looking to sell the

company... We're not looking to IPO anytime soon. It's just not the core focus of

the company."[53]



In September 2007, Microsoft approached Facebook, proposing an investment in

return for a 5% stake in the company, offering an estimated $300 ±500

million.[54] That month, other companies, including Google, expressed interest in

buying a portion of Facebook. [55]

On October 24, 2007, Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share

of Facebook for $240 million, giving Facebook a total implied value of around

$15 billion.[56] However, Microsoft bought preferred stock that carried special

rights, such as "liquidation preferences" that meant Microsoft would get paid

before common stockholders if the company is sold. Microsoft's purchase also

included rights to place international ads on Facebook. [57]

In November 2007, Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing invested $60 million in

Facebook.[58]

In August 2008, BusinessWeek reported that private sales by employees, as well

as purchases by venture capital firms, had and were being done at share prices

that put the company's total valuation at between $3.75 billion and $5 billion. [57]

In October 2008, Zuckerberg said "I don't think social networks can be

monetized in the same way that search did... In three years from now we have

to figure out what the optimum model is. But that is not our primary focus

today."[59]

In August 2009, Facebook acquired social media real-time news

aggregator FriendFeed,[60] a startup created by the former Google employee

and Gmail's first engineer Paul Buchheit who, while at Google, coined the phrase

"Don't be evil".[61][62][63]

In September 2009, Facebook claimed that it had turned cash flow positive for

the first time.[64]

In February 2010, Facebook acquired Malaysian contact -importing startup

Octazen Solutions.[65]

On April 2, 2010, Facebook announced acquisition of photo -sharing service

called Divvyshot for an undisclosed amount. [66]

In June 2010, an online marketplace for trading private company stock reflected

a valuation of $11.5 billion. [67]



GROWTH:

Facebook Now Nearly Twice The Size Of

ySpace Worldwide

In November 2008 Facebook drew 200 million uniqueworldwide visitors; more than 1 in 5 people who accessed the Internet thatmonth visited the site. When sites are that big growth generally stagnates, butin Facebook¶s case it¶s still skyrocketing. In December, 222 million people

visited the site says newly released Comscore stats, a 10.8% month overmonth growth rate. 22% of the total Internet audience went to Facebook inDecember.

Facebook now has nearly 100 million more worldwide users than MySpace,

which added 4 million new users in December to 125 million total. The page

view difference is more dramatic ± Facebook had 80 billion monthly page viewsin December v. 43 billion for MySpace. Just six months ago the sites were

about the same size.

Facebook, still a private company, is the world¶s default social network.MySpace is still the king in the U.S., but trends suggest that 2009 is its last

year on top. By January 2010, at current relative growth rates, Facebook willovertake

ySpace as the largest U.S. social network as well.

We reached out to MySpace for a comment on the growth trends. They say ³ We

are laser foc used on building a sustainable global business which we measureby profits and revenue ± not j ust eyeballs. In a tough economic climate, our

international revenue is u p 35 percent year over year and we continue to foc uson those markets with the strong monetization opport unities. Additionally,MySpace continues to dominate the U.S. market±where the bulk of onlineadvertising revenues reside±both in terms of monetization and user

engagement with more than 76 million unique users and a 40% spike inengagement year over year.´

Total registered users

Date Users (in millions) Days later

August 26, 2008 100 1,665

April 8, 2009 200 225

September 15, 2009 300 160

February 5, 2010 400 143

² 500 139 (ongoing)



Given below is the comparative graphical growth rate of facebook and myspace

Facebook No Longer The Second LargestSocial Network

It was sort of inevitable given Facebook¶s monster growth over the last

few years, but April 2008 was the milestone: Facebook officially caught

up to ¡ ySpace in terms of unique monthly worldwide visitors, accordingto data released by Comscore and shown above. Both services are

attracting around 115 million people to their respective sites eachmonth.



Most of Facebook¶s user growth, however, has been in internationalmarkets ± MySpace is still dominates Facebook in the U.S. market, with

72 million monthly uniques. Facebook has 36 million monthly uniques,

up from 23 million a year ago.

Facebook added 75 million monthly uniques over the last twelve month,

but just 13 million of those visitors are located in the U.S. MySpace

added 5 million U.S. uniques during that period ± at this rate it will take

4+ years for Facebook to catch up to MySpace in the U.S. market.

There¶s a real question about how valuable all these international usersare from an advertising standpoint. We¶ll be publishing our thoughts on

that next week.



FACE BOOK IN INDIA:

Social networking site Facebook will belaunching its India operations from Hyderabad ± its first office in Asia ±

within two months from now. A proposal to this effect was cleared by the

government on Saturday.

Facebook¶s new centre in Hyderabad will come up at the Raheja

Mindspace special economic zone (SEZ), and will supplement operations

supported out of Palo Alto, California, Dublin, Ireland and Texas.

In a press release on Sunday, the state information technology and

communications (ICT) department said about five IT companies had been

accorded permission by the unit committee meeting of the development

commissioner, AP IT SEZs, to set up their offices in a total area of

391,000 sft in different SEZs. Prominent among these are Facebook India

Online Services Private Limited, Accenture and Invesco.

"Vijayawada is being preferred as an alternative Tier-II IT destination in

view of its strategic location," the release said.

An IT SEZ in an area of 30 acre with 200,000 sft has been developed in

Vijayawada by the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation

(APIIC), in association with L&T Info City, which is ready for occupation.

The approval committee gave its go-ahead to four companies ± Tektraks,

Exranet Software Solutions, Indermax and Galla IT Services ± to set up

their operations at the IT SEZ, according to the release.

COMPETITION:

Face book is battling with awareness that

it takes its users for granted as it makes changes that both infuriate and

frustrate its subscriber base.

Some of the competitors of face book are listed below

Appleseed

Collegiate nation

Onesocial web

Crabgrass

Elgg



FACEBOOK FEATURES:

General

Chat

On April 5, 2008, Facebook pre -released Facebook Chat.[1][2] As of April 23, 2008, Facebook

Chat was released to the entire Facebook user base. Users are only able to chat with their

Facebook friends and on a one -to-one basis, although a user may chat with multiple friends

simultaneously through separate chat interfaces. Instant mess aging clients that currently

support Facebook Chat include eBuddy, Flock, Miranda

IM, Digsby, Adium, Nimbuzz, FIM (Windows Mobile)Palringo (Windows Mobile), Tokbox with

a Firefox plugin as well as Pidgin with a cross-platform plug-in. Windows Live Messenger

with Buddyfuse (plugin) can connect to Facebook as well. Facebook Chat can also be run on

the desktop using Gabtastik, a dedicated web chat browser. On May 13, 2008, a Facebook

developer announced that they are working on XMPP support, allowing hundreds of instant

messaging clients to interoperate with the service[3]; this functionality became operational on

February 10, 2010 [4]. A Facebook help article containing all the information required to

connect most popular XMPP supporting IM clients to Facebook's chat service is available.

Credits

Facebook Credits are a virtual currency you can use to buy gifts, and virtual goods in many

games and applications on the Facebook platform. As of July 2010, users of Facebook can

purchase Facebook credits in Australian Dollars, British Pound, Canadian Dollars , Chilean

Peso, Colombian Peso, Danish Krone, Euro, Hong Kong Dollar , Japanese Yen, NorwegianKrone, Swedish Krona, Swiss Franc, Turkish Lira, US Dollars, and Venezuelan Bolivar .

Facebook credits can be used on many popu lar games such as Happy Aquarium, Happy

Island, Zoo Paradise, Happy Pets, Hello City, [5] FarmVille, and Mafia Wars.

Starting in early August of 2010, Facebook is partnering with the electronic payments

company MOL to sell Facebook Credits at half a million 7-Eleven stores, Internet

cafés, online banks and other retailers in Asia.

Easter eggs

The following are easter eggs that Facebook had at one time or another.

At one time, entering the Konami Code followed by Enter at the home page caused a

lensflare-style series of circles to display when clicking, typing, or scrolling. [citation needed ]

Facebook chat supports some unusual emoticons



IPv6

According to a June 2010 report by N etwork World , Facebook said that it was offering

"experimental, non-production" support for IPv6, the long-anticipated upgrade to the

Internet's main communications protocol. The news about Facebook's IPv6 support was

expected; Facebook told N etwork World in February 2010, that it planned to support nativeIPv6 user requests "by the midpoint of this year." [7]

In a presentation at the Google IPv6 Implementors Conference, Facebook's network

engineers said it was "easy to make [the] site available on v6." Facebook said it deployed

dual-stack IPv4 and IPv6 support on its routers, and that it made no changes to its hosts in

order to support IPv6. Facebook also said it was supporting an emerging encapsulation

mechanism known as Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol (LISP), which separates Internet

addresses from endpoint identifiers to improve the scalability of IPv6 deployments.

"Facebook was the first major Web site on LISP (v4 and v6)," Facebook engineers said

during their presentation. Facebook said that using LISP allow ed them to deploy IPv6

services quickly with no extra cost. Facebook's IPv6 services are available at

www.v6.facebook.com, m.v6.facebook.com, www.lisp6.facebook.com and

m.lisp6.facebook.com.

Lite

In August 2009, Facebook announced the rollout of a "lite " version of the site, optimized for

users on slower or intermittent Internet connections. Facebook Lite offered fewer services,

excluded most third-party applications and required less bandwidth. A beta version of the

slimmed-down interface was released f irst to invited testers before a broader rollout across

users in the United States, Canada, and India. It was announced on 20 April 2010 that

support for the "lite" service had ended and that users would be redirected back to the

normal, full content, Face book website. The service was only operational for eight months.

Messages and Inbox

Since the website's founding, it has allowed users to send messages to each other.

Networks, Groups, and Pages

Facebook allows different networks and groups to which many users can join. It also allows

privacy settings on basis of networks. Groups are used for discussions and events etc.Groups are a way of enabling a number of people to come together online to share

information and discuss specific subjects. They are incre asingly used by clubs, companies

and public sector organizations to engage with stakeholders - be they members of the

public, employees, members, service users, shareholders or customers. A group includes

but is not limited to the following: the members wh o have joined, recent news contents,

discussion board contents, wall contents, photos, posted items, videos and all associated



comments of such items. In this respect, groups are similar to pages but contain more

features[citation needed ]. Groups are limited to roughly 300 groups per user.

Individuals or companies can create "Like Pages" which allows users to "like" the individual,

product, service, or conc ept. Like Pages look and behave much like a user's personal

private profile, with some significant differences. Public Profiles are integrated withFacebook's advertising system, allowing Public Profile owners to easily advertise to

Facebook's users. Owners can send updates to their fans, which shows up on their home

page. They also have access to insights and analytics of their fan base. Early on, users had

the option to "become a fan" of the page until April 19, 2010 when the option was later

changed to "like" the page. While an individual with a personal profile can acquire up to

5,000 friends, a "Like Page" can have an unlimited number of "Likers". "Like Pages" can also

be customized by adding new Tabs using the Static FBML application. This powerful feature

can bring additional functionality to a page such as e -mail collection, specialized content, or

a landing page for sales activity.

News Feed

On 6 September 2006, Far ooq Khan announced a new home page feature called News

Feed. Originally, when users logged into Facebook, they were presented with a

customizable version of their own profile. The new layout, by contrast, created an alternative

home page in which users saw a constantly updated list of their friends' Facebook activity.

News Feed highlights information that includes profile changes, upcoming events, and

birthdays, among other updates. This has enabled spammers and other users to manipulate

these features by creating illegitimate events or posting fake birthdays to attract attention to

their profile or cause. [14] News Feed also shows conversations taking place between the

walls of a user's friends. An integral part of the News Feed interface is the Mini -Feed, a

news stream on the user's profile page that shows updates about that user. Unlike in the

News Feed, the user can delete events from the Mini -Feed after they appear so that they are

no longer visible to profile visitors.

Initially, the addition of the News Feed caused some discontent among Facebook users.

Many users complained that the News Feed was too cluttered and full of undesired

information. Others were concerned that the N ews Feed made it too easy for other people to

track activities like changes in relationship status, events, and conversations with other users. This tracking is often casually referred to as "Facebook -Stalking." In response to this

dissatisfaction, creator Mark Zuckerberg issued an apology for the site's failure to include

appropriate customizable privacy features. Thereafter, users were able to control what types

of information were shared automatically with friends. Currently, users may prevent friends

from seeing updates about several types of especially private activities, although other

events are not customizable in this way.



With the introduction of the "New Facebook" - in early February 2010 - came a total redesign

of the pages, several new features and changes to News Feeds. On their personal Feeds

(now integrated with Walls), users were given the option of removing updates from any

application as well as choosing the size they show up on the page. Furthermore, the

community feed (containing recent actions by the user's friends) contained options toinstantly select whether to hear more or less about certain friends or applications.

Notifications

Notifications of the more important events, e.g. someone sharing a link on the user's wall or

commenting on a post the user previously commented on, appear in the bottom left. When a

user is online, new notifications appear on their screen, keeping the user up to speed with

events as they are occurring.

Pokes

The poke

feature is intended to be a "nudge" to attract the attention of another user. Manyfacebook users use this feature to attract attention or say "hello" to their friends. [20] It can

also be interpreted as flirting. A previous version of Facebook's FAQ gave additional insight

into the origin of the feature, stating: "When we created the poke, we thought it would be

cool to have a feature without any specific purpose. People interpre t the poke in many

different ways, and we encourage you to come up with your own meanings."

There are several applications on Facebook which extend the idea of the poke feature by

allowing users to perform other actions to their friends ²such as "kick" or "wave to"²

including Slide.com's SuperPoke! application. People often reciprocate pokes back and forth

until one side gives up, an event known as a "Poke War".

Ser ver infrastructure

At QCon San Francisco 2008, Director of Engineering Aditya Agarwal indicated that the

front-end servers are running a PHP LAMP stack with the addition of Memcached, and the

back-end services are written in a variety of languages

including C++, Java, Python and Erlang. Other components of the Facebook infrastructure

(which have been released as open source projects) include Scribe, Apache

Thrift and Apache Cassandra, as well as existing open-source components such as ODS.

In January 2010, Facebook confirmed it is building the company's first custom data center inPrineville, Oregon. When completed in June 2011, the 147,000 square feet (13,700 m2)

building will occupy 30 acres (0.12 km2) of the 124 acres (0.50 km2) site they purchased, and

will house 35 employees.



Smartphones

Many new smartphones offer access to the Facebook services either through their web -

browsers or applications. The Facebook iPhone -compatible web site was launched August

2007 and as of July 2008 over 1.5 million people used it regular ly, at the point when a free

application for the iOS named "Facebook for iPhone" was launched. [25] Version 2.0 of this

app was released in September 2008 and featured improved services such as being able to

respond to friend requests and notifications. [26] Version 3.0 was released in August 2009 and

added features such as events, and uploading video with a iPhone 3GS. [27]

Nokia offers a Facebook app on its Ovi Store for Nokia S60 devices such as the N97 and

contains most of the functionality of the full we bsite.[28]

Google's Android 2.0 OS automatically includes an official Faceb ook app. The first device to

use this is the Motorola Droid. The app has options to sync Facebook friends with contacts,which adds profile pictures and status updates to the contacts list. Research In Motion also

offers a Facebook application for the BlackBerry. It includes a range of functions, including

an ability to integrate Facebook events into the BlackBerry calendar, and using Facebook

profile pictures for Caller ID.

Status Updates

Facebook has a feature called "status updates" (also referred to simply as "status") which

allows users to post messages for all their friends to read. In turn, friends can respond with

their own comments, and also press the "Like" button to show that they enjoyed reading it. A

user's most recent status update appears at the top of their profile, and is also noted in the

"Recently updated" section of a user's friend list.

Originally, the purpose of the feature was to allow users to inform their friends of their cur rent

"status" (i.e. their current feelings, whereabouts or actions) by referring to themselves in the

third person (e.g. "George is happy" or "John is with Robert at his house"). However, users

are no longer required to write in the third person. Facebook originally prompted the status

update with "Username is..." and Facebook users filled in the rest. However, on December

13, 2007, the requirement to start a status update with i s was removed.[30] The question

"What are you doing right now?" was introduced. In March 2009, the status update questionwas changed from "What are you doing right now?" to "What's on your mind?" [31]

In 2009, Facebook added the feature to tag certain friends (or groups etc.) within one's

status update by adding an @ character before their name, turning the friend's name into a

link to their profile and including the message on the friend's wall.



URL shortener

On December 14, 2009, Facebook launched its own URL shortener based on FB.me domain

name. From that point on, all links based on facebook.com can b e accessed under fb.me,

which is seven characters shorter.

Usernames

Starting June 13, 2009, Facebook introduced a feature that allowed users to choose a

Facebook username to make user location easier. The user is able to direct others to their

page through a simple link such as www.facebook.com/username rather than an otherwise

complex URL. This feature on Facebook quickly spread, with more than 1 million users

registering usernames in the first three hours. [33] Usernames are now available to any

existing or newly registered user.

According to the FAQ, "Facebook reserves the right to remove and/or reclaim any username

at any time for any reason".

[34]

Wall

The Wall is a space on each user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the

user to see while displaying the time and date the message was written. One user's Wall is

visible to anyone with the ability to see his or her full profile, and different users' Wall posts

show up in an individual's News Feed. Many users use their friends' Walls for leaving short,

temporal notes. More private discourse is saved for messages, which are sent to a user's

inbox, and are visible only to the sender and recipient(s) of the message, much like email.

In July 2007, Facebook allowed users to post attachments to the Wall, [35] whereas previously

the Wall was limited to text only. In May 2008, the Wall -to-Wall for each profile was limited to

only 40 posts. Recently Facebook has allowed users to insert html code in boxes attached to

the wall via apps like Static FBML which has allowed marketers to track use of their fan

pages with Google Analytics. [36]

Applications

Events

Facebook events are a way for members to let friends know about upcoming events in their

community and to organize social gatherings. [37] Events require an event name, ne twork,

host name, event type, start and end time, location, and a guest list of friends invited. Events

can be open, closed, or secret. When setting up an event the user can choose to allow

friends to upload photos or videos.

Marketplace

In May 2007, Facebook introduced the Facebook Marketplace allowing users to post free

classified ads within the following categories: For Sale, Housing, Jobs, and Other. Ads can



be posted in either available or wanted format. [38] The market place is available for all

Facebook users and is currently free. [39]. In 2009, Facebook transferred ownership of the

Marketplace to Oodle.

Notes

Facebook Notes was introduced on 22 August 2006, a blogging feature that allowed tags

and embeddable images. Users were later able to import blogs

from Xanga, LiveJournal, Blogger, and other blogging services. [41]

A recent use of Notes includes the Internet meme - "25 Random Things About Me" which

involves writing 25 things about the user that their friends don't already know about them

and using the tag function to ask 25 friends to also do so. Nearly 5 million "25 Random

Things" notes were written on Facebook profiles in the first week of February 2009. [42]

Questions

In May 2010, Facebook began testing Questions, an application in which users submit

questions for their friends to answer. It is expected to compete directly with servic es such

as Yahoo! Answers.

Photos

One of the most popular applications on Facebook is the Photos application, where users

can upload albums of photos, tag friends, and comment on photos. According to

Facebook, [44] in May 2007 there were:

1.7 billion user photos

2.2 billion friends tagged in user photos

160 terabytes of photo storage used with an extra 60 terabytes available

60+ million photos added each week which take up 5 terabytes of disk spa ce

3+ billion photo images served to users every day

100,000+ images served per second during peak traffic windows

Videos

During the time that Facebook released its platform, it also released an application of its own

for sharing videos on Facebook.

Users can add their videos with the service by uploadingvideo, adding video through Facebook Mobile, and using a webcam recording feature.

Additionally, users can "tag" their friends in videos they add much like the way users can tag

their friends in phot os, except the location of the friend in the video is not displayed. Users

also have the option of video messaging. Videos cannot be placed in categories, whereas

photos are sorted by albums.



Former features

GIFTS:

In February 2007, Facebook added a new virtual gift feature to the website. Friends

could send gifts - small icons of novelty items designed by former Apple designer Susan

Kare - to each other by selecting one from Facebook's virtual gift shop and adding a

message. Gifts given to a user appear on the recipient's wall with the giver's message,

unless the giver decided to give the gift privately, in which case the giver's name and

message is not displayed to other users. Additionally, all gifts (including private gifts)

received by a user are displayed in the recipient's gift box (right above their wall on their

profile), marked with either the first name of the user (for public gifts) or the word "Priva te."

An Anonymous option is also available, by which anyone with profile access can see the gift,

but only the recipient sees the message. None will see the giver's name, and the gift goes in

the recipient's gift box but not the wall.

Facebook users are given one free gift to give upon registering their account. Each

additional gift given by a user costs US$1.00. The initial selection of gifts was Valentine's

Day themed, and 50% of the net proceeds (after credit card processing fees were taken out,

etc.) received through February 2007 were donated to the charity Susan G. Komen for the

Cure. After the month of February, the proceeds were no longer donated. Soon after,

Facebook began making one new gift available each day, most of which had a limited supply

or were available for a limited time.

On 8 November 2008, Facebook chang ed the $1.00 per gift model to a micro -payment

model of 100 points per $1.00, with the existing gifts costing 100 points. They plan to allow a

wider variety of gifts in the future.

With the advent of Applications came a way to subvert the required US$1.00 payment;

however, the gifts in the Free Gifts application, created by Zachary Allia, are not the same as

the official gifts, as they are displayed in a different manner.

The built-in Gifts feature will be removed on August 1, 2010, to allow Facebook to foc us on

more important website features. Existing gift -giving applications can be used as a

replacement for the Gifts feature.

10 LESS KNOWN FEATURES OF FACEBOOK:

1. Tag other people in status updates



This feature was released earlier this week and is not well understood by the majority of

Facebook users. For those of us that are savvy to Twitter, it¶s a pretty simple transition as it

functions the same way. You call someone out or speak directly to them by typing the @

symbol and then their name in your st atus update or on someone else¶s wall. Facebook has

programmed the feature to not only tag them, but also link to the said person¶s Facebookpage. Once you¶ve posted your tag, anyone who sees the status update will see your friends

name posted as a hyperli nk and have the option of navigating to his or her page.

2. Block people on chat

This feature wasn¶t available when Facebook chat launched. As a woman, my initial

experience was not always good when up late working - lonely dudes would pop -up to say

³hello,´ looking to find out what I was ³up to tonight.´ Creepy. Thankfully FB has finally

provided the option to prohibit this fr om happening. To block people from chat, you have to

organize them under one group which you can then choose to be inactive in chat. Be careful

though, if they¶re filed under another group as well (i.e. ³work friends´ and ³block from

chat´),they will still show up in chat under the group that you haven¶t blocked!

3. Create a ³top friends´ list, without an app

That¶s right, just like MySpace, you can easily separate your top friends from the rest so

everyone can see who your favorite people are, without usin g an external app! It is a new

feature that was introduced when Facebook unveiled their new layout. To edit your top

friends, view your own profile and click the ³edit´ button in the friends section. Type the

names of your friends who you want to be perman ently highlighted on your friends list and

they will remain there until you remove or replace them.

4. Login with your username

Another newly introduced feature, Facebook makes it easier to login by giving you the option

of entering your username instead o f your email. The ease of this option is especially

noticeable when logging in from a mobile device where typing can be time consuming and

awkward. Don¶t have a username yet? Go to facebook.com/username and pick your vanity

URL!

5. Edit the tabs on your profile

Just click the ³+´ button in your tabs section to choose which applications you¶d like easier

navigation to. This feature makes it simple to promote a cause that¶s important to you or

encourage people to join you on YoVille. Oh no, did I really just give advice on how to further

promote YoVille?



6. Publicize your event without sending annoying messages

Easy to do, just change the time on your event and everyone on the list will get a notification

of the time change in the bottom right hand corner of their homepage. This is a very subtle

way to remind people about your event!

7. Select multiple people at a time for Facebook event invites

By default, Facebook doesn¶t allow you to invite your whole friends list t o your event,

obviously as a measure to reduce spam. You can get around this, however, if you take the

time to organize all of your friends into specific groups - Facebook does allow you to select

all in a given group or network for quick inviting!

8. Restrict your wall activity

If you¶re spending too much time looking at your own wall or tired of friends posting

inappropriate comments that family and co -workers can see, you can disable wall posts from

specific people to keep your reputation, and perhaps sa nity, in tact.

9. Use your friend groups to easily send messages

Compose a message on Facebook and easily send to all your friends by typing their names

in the ´To´ line. The big downside is that you can¶t blind carbon copy (bcc) anyone, and

anyone who responds will send their message to the whole group. Be cautious when

sending group messages and be sure everyone on list would benefit from getting updates

and responses from other group members. Otherwise it¶s best and more respectful to take

the time to send individual messages.

10. Changing Your Privacy Settings

For those of us who use Facebook regularly, we probably know how to do this, but I still run

into a lot of people who don¶t. If you don¶t want the boss to know what you¶re ³really´ doing at

work, lump him into a group titled ³work friends´ and tweak that group¶s settings from viewing

your status updates and anything else you don¶t want them to see. Facebook privacy

settings are incredibly specific - you can personalize each list to see, or not see, pretty muchanything on your profile, giving you total control over your personal brand.

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