{"id":139,"date":"2018-06-14T19:04:37","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T19:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/bus3060\/chapter\/ch08-3\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T18:45:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T18:45:04","slug":"ch08-3","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/bus3060\/chapter\/ch08-3\/","title":{"raw":"8.3 The Social Graph","rendered":"8.3 The Social Graph"},"content":{"raw":"
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Learning Objectives<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n

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After studying this section you should be able to do the following:<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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  1. Understand the concept of feeds, why users rebelled against Facebook feeds, and why users eventually embraced this feature.<\/li>\r\n \t
  2. Recognize the two strategic resources that are most critical to Facebook\u2019s competitive advantage and why Facebook was able to create these resources while MySpace has fallen short.<\/li>\r\n \t
  3. Appreciate that while Facebook\u2019s technology can be easily copied, barriers to sustain any new entrant are extraordinarily high, and the likelihood that a firm will win significant share from Facebook by doing the same thing is considerably remote.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    At the heart of Facebook\u2019s appeal is a concept Zuckerberg calls the social graph<\/a><\/span>, which refers to Facebook\u2019s ability to collect, express, and leverage the connections between the site\u2019s users, or as some describe it, \u201cthe global mapping of everyone and how they\u2019re related\u201d (Iskold, 2007). Think of all the stuff that\u2019s on Facebook as a node or endpoint that\u2019s connected to other stuff. You\u2019re connected to other users (your friends), photos about you are tagged, comments you\u2019ve posted carry your name, you\u2019re a member of groups, you\u2019re connected to applications you\u2019ve installed\u2014Facebook links them all (Zeichick, 2008).<\/p>\r\n

    While MySpace and Facebook are often mentioned in the same sentence, from their founding these sites were conceived differently. It goes beyond the fact that Facebook, with its neat, ordered user profiles, looks like a planned community compared to the garish, Vegas-like free-for-all of MySpace. MySpace was founded by musicians seeking to reach out to unknown users and make them fans. It\u2019s no wonder the firm, with its proximity to Los Angeles and ownership by News Corporation, is viewed as more of a media company. It has cut deals to run network television shows on its site, and has even established a record label. It\u2019s also important to note that from the start anyone could create a MySpace identity, and this open nature meant that you couldn\u2019t always trust what you saw. Rife with bogus profiles, even News Corporation\u2019s Rupert Murdoch has had to contend with the dozens of bogus Ruperts who have popped up on the service (Petrecca, 2006)!<\/p>\r\n

    Facebook, however, was established in the relatively safe cocoon of American undergraduate life, and was conceived as a place where you could reinforce<\/em> contacts among those who, for the most part, you already knew. The site was one of the first social networks where users actually identified themselves using their real names. If you wanted to establish that you worked for a certain firm or were a student of a particular university, you had to verify that you were legitimate via an e-mail address issued by that organization. It was this \u201crealness\u201d that became Facebook\u2019s distinguishing feature\u2014bringing along with it a degree of safety and comfort that enabled Facebook to become a true social utility and build out a solid social graph consisting of verified relationships. Since \u201cfriending\u201d (which is a link between nodes in the social graph) required both users to approve the relationship, the network fostered an incredible amount of trust. Today, many Facebook users post their cell phone numbers and their birthdays, offer personal photos, and otherwise share information they\u2019d never do outside their circle of friends. Because of trust, Facebook\u2019s social graph is stronger than MySpace\u2019s.<\/p>\r\n

    There is also a strong network effect<\/a><\/span> to Facebook (see Chapter 6 \u201cUnderstanding Network Effects\u201d<\/a>). People are attracted to the service because others they care about are more likely to be there than anywhere else online. Without the network effect Facebook wouldn\u2019t exist. And it\u2019s because of the network effect that another smart kid in a dorm can\u2019t rip off Zuckerberg in any market where Facebook is the biggest fish. Even an exact copy of Facebook would be a virtual ghost town with no social graph (see Note 8.23 \u201cIt\u2019s Not the Technology\u201d below).<\/p>\r\n

    The switching costs<\/a><\/span> for Facebook are also extremely powerful. A move to another service means recreating your entire social graph. The more time you spend on the service, the more you\u2019ve invested in your graph and the less likely you are to move to a rival.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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    It\u2019s Not the Technology<\/h4>\r\n

    Does your firm have Facebook envy? KickApps, an eighty-person start-up in Manhattan, will give you the technology to power your own social network. All KickApps wants is a cut of the ads placed around your content. In its first two years, the site has provided the infrastructure for twenty thousand \u201cmini Facebooks,\u201d registering three hundred million page views a month (Urstadt, 2008). NPR, ABC, AutoByTel, Harley-Davidson, and Kraft all use the service (social networks for Cheez Whiz?).<\/p>\r\n

    There\u2019s also Ning, which has enabled users to create over 2.3 million mini networks organized on all sorts of topics as diverse as church groups, radio personalities, vegans, diabetes sufferers networks limited to just family members.<\/p>\r\n

    Or how about the offering from Agriya Infoway, based in Chennai, India? The firm will sell you Kootali, a software package that lets developers replicate Facebook\u2019s design and features, complete with friend networks, photos, and mini-feeds. They haven\u2019t stolen any code, but they have copied the company\u2019s look and feel. Those with Zuckerberg ambitions can shell out the four hundred bucks for Kootali. Sites with names like Faceclub.com and Umicity.com have done just that\u2014and gone nowhere.<\/p>\r\n

    Mini networks that extend the conversation (NPR) or make it easier to find other rabidly loyal product fans (Harley-Davidson) may hold a niche for some firms. And Ning is a neat way for specialized groups to quickly form in a secure environment that\u2019s all their own (it\u2019s just us, no \u201ccreepy friends\u201d from the other networks). While every market has a place for its niches, none of these will grow to compete with the dominant social networks. The value isn\u2019t in the technology; it\u2019s in what the technology has created over time. For Facebook, it\u2019s a huge user base that (for now at least) is not going anywhere else.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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    Key Takeaways<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n

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