Back in the 2000's, if you wanted to get on the Internet you’d have to painfully wait for dial-up to connect you. A few minutes later, if you wanted to chat with your friends you could log into ICQ, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, or MSN Messenger. Now if you wanted to connect on larger social scale, you had the likes of Hi5, Friendster, Okurt, and Myspace. Then, like most digital products, something better came along and users jumped ship.
The death of of these messaging applications and social networking sites tell a tale of digital Darwinism. In order to survive, a product must constantly be innovative and stay ahead of the curve. Of the handful of sites that launched in the early 2000's, Facebook managed to survive — nay —to put it bluntly, annihilated its competitors with a capital A and shredded them to pieces.
As of today, there are over 2.01 billion active Facebook users. The conception, launch, evolution and future of this digital mammoth is one to learn from and keep an eye on. So what is the magic formula behind Facebook’s massive success? From a product designer’s standpoint, the success can be boiled down to several factors.
A well designed product, according to Joshua Porter is one that:
Creates Solutions
When Facebook launched in 2003, its biggest competitor was MySpace. While MySpace was a great site for users to follow their favorite bands and artists easily, it was missing a big component: Instant messaging via chat boxes. Why have your users leave your site and use other apps when you can integrate that feature? In 2003, Mark Zuckerberg jumped ahead of the curb and rolled out Facebook chat. While the user browses what’s happening on their feed, they can simultaneously pop in and out of their chat without ever having to leave the site. Over the years, the messaging system has evolved and upgraded, allowing its users to send files, call, share current location, play games and more. Facebook has proven itself to be useful in more ways than one, but the launch of IM was a game changer.
Personal value precedes social value
Zuckerberg didn’t create Facebook so that he could loop in investors and shareholders, at least not right away. Since the early days of Facebook’s creation, Zuckerberg always made sure to focus on its users/product before any social value. Facebook obtained its core user base by restricting its initial users through an invite only system. The feeling of intimacy, exclusivity and respect of privacy intrigued users and slowly grew to what it is today. While MySpace littered its site with tons of advertisements, Facebook refused to sell out and instead kept its interface simple for its users. No one likes advertisement, yet MySpace seemed to ignore its users and relied on advertising revenue instead. What did advertisers want? Real estate? Sure! Why not? Car ads? No problem! In short, it neglected its users and sold itself out.
Savvy and Innovative
Over the last decade or so, digital innovation has accelerated incredibly. Innovation and adaptation is key. Facebook studied their users’ behaviors and rolled out new features to adapt and satisfy their consumers.
Addressing lag and slow loading times: Okurt and MySpace users began to complain about slow loading times, lag on the sites and general bloating. If you recall, MySpace allowed users to integrate profile music, a song track that would play automatically upon landing. While it was well intentioned, it really slowed down the site, plus, did anyone really enjoy a random track to play unexpectedly? There are some sites that integrate autoplay video that pop up in the corner and you know what? It’s never warmly received. Facebook kept their interface simple: no flash, no gifs, no audio play, and it didn’t allow users to code/personalize their pages as much as MySpace. Again, while well intentioned, it resulted in messy profiles and general spammy looking sites, which contributed to the lag.
Addressed the need and desire for community
Though Myspace wanted to create a community based platform, it didn’t really have a clue how to do so. Users built their profile as single webpages and were able to follow other users, but through it all it felt isolated and disconnected. There was no coherency and Myspace encouraged users to create profiles with nicknames/anonymous names. Facebook on the other hand started off as a community based platform with its small user base, invite only initiative and its goal for users to “connect” with people they know. Over time, users felt safe and word began to spread because they were enjoying their experience!
The Future
There’s no guarantee where Facebook will be in 5–10 years but with 14 years of success in this digital space, it earns itself a giant gold star for being a leader in tech industry. A good product is something that is integrated in your everyday life; without Facebook many people would feel disconnected from what’s happening in their friends’ lives and the world: updates all in one space. That is what I call integration.
