Power in Network of Social Networking Giants
http://technorati.com/blogging/article/social-networking-on-mobile-devices-set/
According to ABI research, a projected 550 million people will access social networks from their smartphones this year. By 2016, it is predicted that 1.7 billion people will access social networks from various mobile devices. This trend has resulted in many of the big names in social networking and mobile devices to team up in order to maximize their companies value. Currently, Google is working to incorporate Google+ with its latest versions of the Android operating system, and Twitter is being integrated into Apple’s iOS5. Facebook is currently being used on mobile devices and computers, but as other social networks are becoming more available to mobile device users, facebook may see its popularity decline if it is not able to join up with a powerful mobile device company.
This situation can be analyzed as a strength in social newtorks problem. In this case, the nodes of the graph are the various social networking and mobile device companies. There is no limit on the number of exchanges between nodes. Currently Twitter, Google+, and facebook are all reasonably accessible from iPhones and Android phones, so no one node is in a socially stronger position in this graph. However, Twitter, Google, and Apple seek to increase the value in their exchanges with other nodes by integrating products together. By integrating the Twitter and iPhone, Twitter users are more easily able to access Twitter (a good thing for Twitter) and consumers in the market for a mobile device are incentivized to purchase iPhones because of ease of use of Twitter. It is easier to see why the pairing is useful in terms of the entire Google network. Google as a whole seeks to increase its company’s value by increasing the total number of Google products that its users use. By integrating the Android operating system, which already allows for ease of use of many of Google’s products, with Google+, Google seeks to increase its amount of use and users of Google+ by making it easy for current Google users to use Google+ on their Android phones. Thus by integrating with Android Google+ gets more use, and consumers are incentivized to purchase Android phones based on the increased number of Google products that are integrated on the phone.
When Google+ and Android, and iPhone and Twitter pair up, Facebook will have very little power in the network. While iPhones and Android phones will continue to have Facebook apps, Facebook will not be paired with either of them, so use and usership of Facebook will drop as users migrate to other social networking sites that are easier to use on mobile devices. Hence, mobile device companies will be even less incentivized to integrate with Facebook. This will continue to decrease the amount of power that Facebook has in the network of social networking giants. However, these are just predictions based on what we have learned thusfar in class. It is possible for Facebook integration to become more valuable to companies. If Facebook is able to drastically increase its use and usership from desktop computer based users, mobile device companies will be incentivized to integrate with Facebook. Alternatively, it is also possible for Facebook to develop a new mobile device operating system that is able to compete with iOS and Android, in which case Facebook would be in a similar situation to Google in regards to ways of attracting users and consumers of its products. These situations and more are ways that Facebook is able to reverse the current path of decreasing power in the network of social networking giants.