Facebook & Micro-blog Discussion

By Carol Chiu 、 Shan Ni Lin

Course: Business Model Innovations (Department of Communications

Management at Shih-Hsin University)

Instructor: Kuo Ding Yu

Press to Play

&

#Twitter was established in 2006, and in July of 2009, it was banned by the Chinese government.

In 2008, Micro-blogging started to gain popularity in Taiwan, #Plurk, #Wretch Digu started to get attention from the public

#Sina Weibo was online in August of 2009

In 2010, several other Chinese based web company made their own version of micro-blogs: #Tencent, #Sohu, #NTES

Who did Facebook & Micro-blog defeat?

• North American Market– MySpace – Friendster– Hi5

• Taiwan Market– Wretch– Other blogs

What software did Facebook & Micro-blog replace?

• MSN Messenger• Yahoo! Messenger• ICQ• AOL Instant Messenger• Google Talk

Facebook Features Evolution

• 2004: Friend + Pictures…• 2006: News Feed + Status Update…• 2007: Notes + Network + API + Inbox … • 2008: New UI + Live Chat + Smartphone

APPs...• 2009: “Like” + Sharing Customization +

Share…• 2010: Groups + Check-in + Fans Page …• 2011: Ipad APP + Timeline + Subscribe …

Detailed Evolution

Facebook Competitive Advantage

• Gradually sips into our daily lives• All-in-one service to gain more

stickiness among users

• API allows others to create more contents for its platform

• Personalized targeted marketing

Micro-blog Competitive Advantage

• Celebrities attraction• Huge market in China• Tight internet regulations,

protected market– Banned many outside social network

services, but open their own services to the world

Facebook Business Opportunity?

• World of Mouth / Inbound Marketing• Viral Marketing• Brand Loyalty• User Generated Branding• Fans Page, Groups• Personified Branding / Relationship

Marketing

Micro-Blog Business Opportunity?

• Celebrities Attraction– e.g. some best selling books use it to do

promotion

• Word-of-mouth + Viral Marketing

• Proactive customer relationship buiding– JetBlue seeks out customer problems and

responds to them on Twitter

Facebook & Micro-blog Competition

• Other SNS (Google+, Twitter, etc.)

• Niche Websites(Urbanspoon, Yelp, etc)

• Smartphone– Instant Message APP (Line, whatsapp, viber,

skype)

– Location Based Services (Foursquare, etc)

Facebook’s Future

• Innovation Perspective– More features and functionalities

– Too much features and thus make it difficult for entry level users

– Privacy issues

• Personal Opinion– Gradual changes to make it easier for people to

accept

– New type of similar services might develop and gain popularity in time

Micro-blog’s Future

• Innovation Perspective– Competitive emerging, but the current market

is already steady; therefore market fluctuation might be small

• Personal Opinion– Even if China lifts the ban, outside competitors

might have limited opportunity to gain major market share due to cultural differences, as well as already established network might be harder to penetrate.