Facebook Assignment

Nathan Barry – S10001606 Business Context Introduction The following assignment was created by our group [ ] Our chosen organisation for the assignment is the online social networking site Facebook. As a group we feel as though this would give us a good opportunity to analyse the factors of business content in an in-depth way. Business could be defined as “the transformation of inputs into outputs. This transformation process takes place against a background of external influences which affect the firm and its activities”. (Worthington and Britton 2000:3) Facebook Background
Facebook was co-founded in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerburg and roommate Dustin Moskovitz, both American entrepreneurs who attended Harvard University, Massachusetts. Zuckerburg now owns around a quarter of the organisation with Dustin still having a share of around 6-7% as of 2010. Facebook’s mission statement simply reads “to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected”. (www. facebook. com) Economics “The study of how human beings seek to use resources to satisfy the whole range of their needs, wants and desires”. Wetherly and Otter 2008:3) We need resources in order to satisfy our needs, wants and aspirations. The economy provides this in four categories which are land, labour, capital and enterprise. The economy surrounding Facebook is undoubtedly large and still growing rapidly with investors continuingly looking to pump money into the company. The site attracts businesses from all over the world and of all sizes with its expansive advertising space which reaches out to millions of users daily.
Recent figures published by Facebook themselves estimate a figure in the region of “five hundred million users with 50% of chose actively logging into the site daily”. (www. Facebook. com/stats). This therefore is an extremely attractive proposition for any business looking to advertise as most target audiences are reachable. Supply and demand is an extremely important factor for Facebook. They are the market leader in there sector and therefore control the price as investors and company’s looking to advertise have little choice when it comes to substitutes (compliments).

There is a huge demand for what Facebook offer and this demand is only met by small supply which as a result increases the price. Legal/Technology Technology is “the sum of knowledge of the means and methods of producing goods and services” (Worthington and Britton 2000:138). Technology is massive issue for any online business as falling behind could be very costly in terms of gaining a competitive advantage. Facebook specifically must concentrate on information technology (i. c. t) as they handle huge quantities of data about their users.
Businesses must comply with legislation and Facebook are a complex example with issues such as eBullying, “the term used to refer to bullying and harassment by use of electronic devices such as mobile phones, e-mail, instant messaging, text messages and websites”. (www. ebullying. co. uk). Facebook attempts to reduce this with an extensive rights and responsibility page which must be agreed to when the user signs up to the website such as an age restriction policy although this is easily flawed as users can enter the wrong D. O. B without checks being carried out.