Social Networking Sites - Case Study Example

2nd July, Social Networking Sites Question Two kinds of technologies are mostly common for the businesses, which are named as disruptive and sustaining technologies. Disruptive technologies are the ones in which an altogether new business concept is initiated such that it is not the extension of previously used concept or idea. A new target market is identified under disruptive technology and then the respective market is served. Conversely, sustaining technology works on the older concepts such that the existing markets are extended and few changes are introduced in the current technology.

So far as the business technology for Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace are concerned, all of these social networking sites are working on the basis of disruptive technology as they are emerged through a unique business idea and their businesses are not the extension of previously existing businesses. Question 2 Different sorts of challenges are mainly faced by the social networking sites these days such that those challenges have converted the future of these social networking sites from a reality into myth.

Major challenges encountered by these social networking sites includes inclusion of too many players into social networking market and thus effectively causing harms to the existing industry giants, very unlikely responses of the users to the ads and banners have also shown serious threats to these sites as they generate a major chunk of revenues from those advertisements, inability of the users to access these sites with absolute freedom as the marketers are always behind them causing frustration to the users and thus ultimately they feel better off closing the window of these social networking sites.

Question 3 Social networking sites are basically created to enhance more harmony among the users all over the globe who may not connect with each other with so much convenience. The major characteristics of these social networking sites include connecting the people of likeminded all over the world, making communication among them easier, allowing them to share the information, photos, videos, and blogs, etc. Not only this, social networking sites are also meant to promote the products and services of the enterprises and thus creating opportunities to earn some revenues.

Other characteristics of social networking sites may be to share information of the users to other networks. For examples, Facebook and Skype share the contact details of their users to each other. Question 4 With the emergence of social networking sites, undoubtedly users are allowed more freedom to share their personal information, opinion and other contents to anyone with more ease than ever before. However, this has brought some security concerns to the information shared by the users of these social networking sites.

At times, when these social networking sites are in the process of website and database maintenance, lots of time the security and privacy settings of the users lapsed such that virtually every private thing is changed into public property. Other main security concern arises in the form of permission given to these sites to share the personal information of users to other networks and enterprises which can use that information for their marketing and business purposes. In this way, once a piece of information is uploaded on these sites, the users virtually lose their control on that item.

Question 5 Besides the older patterns of social networking sites which included finding people, connecting them, viewing their user profile, commenting on their posts etc, the latest trends arising on these social networking sites include the communication through chats which include video chats and calls, grouping of friends, attaching photos and videos with the text messages, sharing and obtaining contact details of other networks, allowing users to buy and sell different products and services by staying on the same page of these social networking site and many others.

Due to these latest trends, more attraction and user visits are expected which in turn attract marketers to place their advertisements. Question 6 Banner and texts are undoubtedly the biggest area from where these social networking sites earn revenues. However, there are some other resources from where these social networking sites make money which include the fee charged from the premium account holders. These premium accounts are mainly purchased by the enterprises which can actively use the facilities provided by these social networking sites to promote their business among which the major facility is to provide user information to those enterprises.

Social networking sites also provide business platforms to other companies which can conduct their customer side business operations of sales and purchase such that they are also visible on the profiles of these users and other users can also comment on transactions and record their reviews. References Owyang, Jeremiah. The Many Challenges of Social Network Sites. 11 February 2008. 02 July 2012. Web.