it's complicated with....Facebook

Valentine has requested to add a relationship that's complicated with you, but before we can do that, you must confirm that you are actually in a complicated relationship with Valentine.

There's friendster, myspace, a bazillion other networking websites, what makes Facebook different? and what makes it great?
(the complicated relationship bit above is wholly irrelevant to this post, it's just amusing...at least to me)


#1 TARGET POPULATION
Facebook's focused communities is an advantage over its competing sites.
A. Membership
Originally, Facebook was a website for Harvard students to post their pictures, information, etc. so that they could contact each other as an alternative to Face books colleges gave out. With the immediate success at Harvard, Facebook was opened up to other universities and then eventually to high schools as well.
This type of connection does not exist on MySpace or Friendster or similar websites where the population is completely random. Sure some people join, and they have groups of friends they are connected to on the website, and yes, because it is un-focused there are more people on MySpace than on Facebook, but the percentage of people who are in colleges and highschools registered (on facebook), that are actually on facebook is amazing.
Why sign up? Easy! All my friends are on it, and this way I can get information if I need to email them, call, etc., see what theyve been upto, keep in touch, and most importantly, find out any juice info like whom they are dating and what he/she looks like! There is an entire community of people that I know on facebook, through college and highschool, and for the majority of people that I don't know, I am probably just one or two "friendships/connections away from them"...This just isn't true with other, non-focused websites
B. Security
Facebook calls itself an online directory, and it's true, whenever I am looking for someone's information often the firt place I go is facebook. And part of what makes it so successful is that people do feel secure in posting their information on it. Why? Because I know that the only people seeing my information, besides my friends, are other Northwestern students. There are multiple layers of security on the site, but ultimately, the fact that the site is focused on other students, makes people comfortable in using it to it's full extent.
C. Advertisements/Income
Facebook has a specific population of educated young adults, a very large one at that (7th most viewed American website/roughy 7 million members). If I were an advertisement company trying to hit this demographic...what am I waiting for?!
(Also, facebook does specific advertisements based on university, which is great for student groups trying to put out info about their event, it doesn't quite bring in the big bucks as the aformentioned, but it is a great resource for college students)


So, Friend me! Stalk me! Check out my pictures, my info, my complicated relationship, and don't forget to join the Valentine Fan Club while you're at it!