Q1: To what can be attributed to the ascendancy of Facebook to reach dominance in the digital ecosystem?
Facebook has become the most powerful social media network globally that also acquired some other highly popular social media networks that can be a threat to it like Instagram. The main reason for its popularity is that it had combined two facets of common web surfing and added interpersonal elements to it. Facebook not only contains informative content now that covers all kinds of national regional and global issues but is also a great entertainment platform through videos, games, memes, and other applications. (Boukouvidis, 2015)
However. Four specific factors made Facebook so popular and hence powerful.
The first important factor is simplicity that is a major reason for its success. It is a highly straightforward way to communicate with your friends and discuss different topics as well as share what you want to. Its user interface is self-explanatory and user friendly. (Boukouvidis, 2015)
Another powerful factor is the privacy of Facebook. It gives the privacy in the hand of the users and users can decide what it wants to share with the Facebook and how the information collected by the Facebook can be used or even it can also be deleted. (Boukouvidis, 2015)
The news feed is another unique and powerful factor that offers the users quick and important information about their friends and interests right in front without searching for. (Boukouvidis, 2015)
The developer platform of Facebook is another important feature. It has offered developers some highly useful tools to make apps for it that makes it unique among all other social media platforms.(Boukouvidis, 2015)
Q2: How does Facebook generate its revenue and what is its annual turnover?
Facebook mainly makes money through advertisements on several of the platforms that include Facebook itself, Instagram, and so on. These platforms comprise mobile apps and websites that provide users the capability to get connected and communicate with its family. These websites and apps include social networking site Facebook, photo- and video-sharing app Instagram, and messaging apps Messenger and WhatsApp. The company also offers an ecosystem that allows users to connect through its Oculus virtual reality products.It also tries to introduce a subscription model to improve its revenue.(Jhonston, 2021).
The company is rapidly growing and is generated $86 billion (yahoo finance) of revenue in the financial year 2020.However, due to COVID-19, this level of turnover does not seem to be sustainable. It will decline in 2021 (Yahoo finance) and will again recover in the long run.
Q3: What are expectations for the future growth of Facebook, given the risk factors they face?
Facebook has a highly dominating position in the market. The company is expected to grow rapidly once the COVID-19 is controlled. Due to COVID-19, the sales revenue of the company or its turnover is expected to decrease in the next financial year. After all, the advertising spend must have been decreased because a lot of businesses are gown down like hotel industry and airline industry.
However, the company is also threatening due to privacy concerns. The company is accused of leaking the private information of the users knowingly or unknowingly. That negatively impacted the users’ confidence, and a lot of users left Facebook. The company needs to ensure no such scandal is made now otherwise competitors may take away its consumers. Already several strong competitors have emerged like TikTok, Telegram and so on that have attracted a huge amount of consumers due to their uniqueness as well as several platforms are attracting users due to their privacy policy(Peterson, 2021).
Q4: What dangers for society does Facebook‘s accumulation of personal data pose?
Facebook holds a huge amount of personal data of the consumers. It even uses the camera and microphone to see the video and listen to audio even when the mobile phone and Facebook are not in use. All this is hidden under the long and complex privacy policy which users hardly read and then saving oneself from such privacy exploitation is very difficult. This personal data cannot only be used to exploit individuals but the whole nation as well as happened in the scandal related to US elections where the data taken from Facebook by Cambridge Analytics was used to manipulate the voters’ opinion to favor a certain political party. So the accumulation of the data is very dangerous. Moreover, if it is hacked by hackers. Then they can use that sensitive data in any way harming consumers or groups. Therefore, Facebook needs to be highly scrutinized to not only protect individuals but the nations. It is very dangerous for society(Peterson, 2021).
Boukouvidis, T. (2015). Four Reasons Facebook Is So Popular. The Odyssey Online. Retrieved 13 February 2021, from https://www.theodysseyonline.com/four-reasons-facebook-so-popular.
Jhonston, M. (2021). How Facebook Makes Money. Investopedia. Retrieved 15 February 2021, from https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/120114/how-does-facebook-fb-make-money.asp.
Yahoo is now a part of Verizon Media. Finance.yahoo.com. (2021). Retrieved 15 February 2021, from https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/FB/financials/.
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