Why is facebook making it, while the others are not
and it has nothing to do with technology, and yet everything to do with technology...1. The user experience:
- Picture Profile: Seeing your picture as a way to identify yourself adds so much to a personal experience.
- Layout of the Feeds: The layout of the feeds is so friendly, you can see less or more depending on your choice.
- The menus: The top menus stay so consistent within the user's experience, while the 2nd level menus are context dependent.
2. The technology:
- An open platform: The ability to create new facebook applications by third parties is such as huge strategic success that facebook has over the competition.
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Facebook has the momentum to become the greatest web company ever, but the following are key challenges that it needs to address:
- Advertising program: Its Ad-program is quite weak and ineffective to say the least. The ads look cheap, and often times irrelevant and out of context.
- Mobile experience: Facebook has a set of mobile features, but there is a whole new world of features that are waiting to be exploited with location, context and network enablers.
- Business model: Can facebook sustain the cost of the explosion of its user-base and usage, with its existing ad-based and VC funding. There is surely a lot of thought been given to this.
If facebook can overcome these challenges, it has the momentum to become the greatest web company ever...