Poster Session #1: South UC Ballroom

Facebook's Fall in the Social Media Age

Presentation Type

Poster

Faculty Mentor’s Full Name

Lee Banville

Faculty Mentor’s Department

Journalism

Abstract / Artist's Statement

Almost from its inception, the social media universe was centered around one all-encompassing network, Facebook. Today with technological advancements and a more sophisticated audience of social networkers, Facebook is struggling to meet the increasingly sophisticated and complex array of demands from its users. That is primarily because social networking is now a mass media, and networks focusing on niche markets and specific uses are more effectively addressing the needs of specific groups better and are therefore becoming more popular. Facebook is still the largest social network by size, but that’s not enough to guarantee its future. This project is based on my analysis of reports conducted in the field of social networking. To understand the life cycle of a social network, I studied the history of former social networks to see why they succeeded and then failed. I also analyzed social media users - who is using social networks, how they are accessing them, and how often. My study includes research that describes the growth and populations of the largest and fastest growing social networks. I conducted a series of interviews with academics the social networking field to gain a further understanding of today's social media market and the future of social networking. Through this systemic view of how people use social networks we can understand the market forces influencing and altering social media. Informed by this research I discovered a hole in the current social media market. Therefore, I created the framework for a social networking app to fill this void.

Category

Humanities

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Apr 17th, 11:00 AM Apr 17th, 12:00 PM

Facebook's Fall in the Social Media Age

South UC Ballroom

Almost from its inception, the social media universe was centered around one all-encompassing network, Facebook. Today with technological advancements and a more sophisticated audience of social networkers, Facebook is struggling to meet the increasingly sophisticated and complex array of demands from its users. That is primarily because social networking is now a mass media, and networks focusing on niche markets and specific uses are more effectively addressing the needs of specific groups better and are therefore becoming more popular. Facebook is still the largest social network by size, but that’s not enough to guarantee its future. This project is based on my analysis of reports conducted in the field of social networking. To understand the life cycle of a social network, I studied the history of former social networks to see why they succeeded and then failed. I also analyzed social media users - who is using social networks, how they are accessing them, and how often. My study includes research that describes the growth and populations of the largest and fastest growing social networks. I conducted a series of interviews with academics the social networking field to gain a further understanding of today's social media market and the future of social networking. Through this systemic view of how people use social networks we can understand the market forces influencing and altering social media. Informed by this research I discovered a hole in the current social media market. Therefore, I created the framework for a social networking app to fill this void.