Title: Impact of Social networking.
Explain why you have chosen this topic and why you think it will be rich to study this are: I have chosen this topic because with the introduction of the revolutionary web, many aspects of our everyday lives has changed. We now communicate via the web, resulting in a isolated nation, where we connect with the world.
Media texts/products that will become your primary sources: Facebook, Twitter, MSN Messenger and Skype.
1. Has new digital media had an impact upon ownership and control of the media institution(s) involved in your case study? Explain in detail any impact and what
exactly has changed.
Facebook:
Founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 whilst he was studying at Harvard. Facebook has over 1,700 employees and offices in 12 countries.
Regarding Facebook ownership, Mark Zuckerberg owns 24% of the company, Accel Partners owns 10%, Digital Sky Technologies owns 10%, Dustin Moskovitz owns 6%, Eduardo Saverin owns 5%, Sean Parker owns 4%, Peter Thiel owns 3%, Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital Partners own between 1 to 2% each, Microsoft owns 1.3%, Li Ka-shing owns 0.75%, the Interpublic Group owns less than 0.5%, a small group of current and former employees and celebrities own less than 1% each, including Matt Cohler, Jeff Rothschild, Adam D'Angelo, Chris Hughes, and Owen Van Natta, while Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus have sizable holdings of the company, and the remaining 30% or so are owned by employees, an undisclosed number of celebrities, and outside investors.
Most of their revenue comes from advertising as they don’t charge their customers.
Twitter:
As chief executive officer, Dorsey saw the startup through two rounds of capital funding by the venture capitalists who backed the company. Williams took over the role of CEO, and Dorsey became chairman of the board. On October 4, 2010, Williams announced that he was stepping down as CEO. Dick Costolo, formerly Twitter's chief operating officer, became CEO.
MSN Messenger:
MSN Messenger was created in 1999 on web 1.0 and since then it has revived several of times to keep up with the rapidly changing technology. Each year a new version comes out, about 5 versions have been released. It’s owned by Microsoft which is one of the largest companies in the world.
Skype:
Apparently an eBay company.
2.What impact has there been on the way in which the audience now consume the media products/texts involved in your case study? How does it differ from what went before? Consider SHEP
People have now become so dependent on social networking sites. As everyone is ‘so’ busy these days people find it easier and more appropriate to contact others via networking sites as they don’t have time to go out and meet them face to face.
“ Under the illusion of allowing us to communicate better, it is actually isolating us from real human interactions in a cyber- reality is a poor imitation of the real world” Sherry Turkle
“ MySpace has been sucked into its own black hole recently, cutting 500 employees and admitting that they’re no longer battling binary codes with Facebook” The online Sub- Life (Guardian)
websites can be accessed anywhere anytime, on new smart phones, laptops, computers etc. This makes it easier for people to access these websites and making them more dependent on these specific meeting sites. Skype calls can be made on the phone and are free, they also include video calls which allow users to meet face to face but not actually face to face. Before people used to go out meet with one another, but now at the comfort of their own home they can reach a wide audience.
“Traditional courtship has been negatively impacted via online dating by removing the element of conversation”
3. What impact has there been on how the media institution now has to produce the texts and the way in which the texts/products are distributed and exhibited? This should involve a detailed textual analysis of at least 3 texts to demonstrate the point
Facebook now has to be accessed through phones as well due to change in technology and rise in demand as well as Skype, MSN messenger and Twitter.
http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/3/Facebook_and_Twitter_Access_via_Mobile_Browser_Grows_by_Triple-Digits
“30.8 percent of smart phone users accessed social networking sites via their mobile browser in January 2010”
“In January 2010, 25.1 million mobile users accessed Facebook via their mobile browser, up 112 percent from the previous year”
“MySpace attracted 11.4 million users”
“Twitter, which has experienced tremendous growth in both mobile and PC-based visitation, attracted 4.7 million mobile users in January, up 347 percent versus year ago”.
With free signing up, all of the sites have to compete with this and try not to charge customers for using their websites.
4. Is the size of the audience any different now than before the impact of new and digital media (or has the pattern of usage changed)?
Facebook has announced 400mm users, Feb 5, 2010.
Twitter themselves finally publish numbers indicating there are 50mm tweets created each day. ”Folks were tweeting 5,000 times a day in 2007. By 2008, that number was 300,000, and by 2009 it had grown to 2.5 million per day. Tweets grew 1,400% last year to 35 million per day. Today, we are seeing 50 million tweets per day—that’s an average of 600 tweets per second. (Yes, we have TPS reports.)”
Oct 21, 2009 - Skype’s registered users grew 41 percent to 521 million people. That’s a stunning 40 million new registered users in the past three months. Revenues grew 29 percent to $185 million
5. Who are the primary target audience now and has this changed? Who was it before and how to you know?
Facebook:
Current: 13-40
Originally: 18-25
How do you know? The site was set up to communicate with students from other universities, but the age restriction has become 13+ with parental permission.
Twitter:
Current: Mostly celebrities
Originally: Ordinary people
How do you know? Twitter was set up in order for people to communicate in groups, quickly and easier. However these days’ people use twitter to follow celebrities and see what is new with them.
MSN Messenger:
Current: 11-21
Originally: 16-24
How do you know? The age limit to owning a msn account used to be 16+ but now it’s 13+. With the introduction of Facebook, older people prefer it less to use msn messenger.
Skype
Current: 13+
Originally: 16-35
How do you know? Just cause.
6)How have the audience responded to the change? Is there more customer choice? Is there evidence of a more pluralistic model? What evidence do you have to support this?
Audiences have become more active, in the sense that they can put forward their views on Facebook statuses, through tweets. There is more customer choice, as there are so many social networking sites; it’s just that Facebook is the monopoly at the moment. There is a form of pluralistic model, people can join small groups of these sites to show their interests.
7)What concerns/ considerations are there (if any) for media institutions involved in your case study as a result of the impact of new and digital media?
The biggest problem is censorship and regulation of their websites.
“Interesting news from the world of Internet bean counters: Facebook’s growth last month stalled to virtually nothing – at least here in the US. And a number of people are pointing to the social network’s seemingly endless series of privacy and security gaffes as the culprits.”
http://www.itworld.com/internet/113310/are-privacy-problems-killing-facebook?page=0%2C0
Security is a problem with all of these networking sites.
8)What are the political and social implications of the new technologies and the methods of their consumption?
Politically people have become a bit freer, as they can put across their point of view. Socially some say that people have become isolated as they now connect via the web whereas before they would meet face to face.
9)Consider the effects so far, and possible effects in the future, on media institutions involved in your case study?
Facebook may have to somehow make their website stricter to enable younger children not signing up to it.
Skype will take over phone calls, and make people lose money.
Msn Messenger will die out.
Twitter will get immense.
