I saw the movie, Social network. It was passionate story about the founder of Facebook. This movie is dealing with the conflict between Mark Zuckerberg and other people which is closely related with Facebook.
In my opinion, there are three reasons that Facebook could grow as a successful SNS.
1. Innovative ideas and differentiated plan
According to the movie, disappointedly, the first man who has an idea of Facebook is not Mark Zuckerberg but Wingklevoss brothers. When they explained the concept of their SNS, Mark replied in which sense it is differentiated with other SNS such as MySpace. And he got a hint from their answer that this SNS is only for Harvard student.
Social shopping is very similar with a group purchase. But Groupon connects offline shops to customers based on a regional approach. And now many users don’t think that Groupon is a kind of a group purchase.
2. Rapid execution
After the discussion with Winklevoss, Mark set up the plan for the new SNS and pursuade his friend to participate into his project. And he finally made a new service in his own effort in a few weeks. Like his remark, the important thing is not the idea in one’s brain but the service or material that we can see.
Many ventrures always make their own effort to realize their service concept. This passion wouldn’t be easily cought up with big companies. Most big companies have so complicated processes that they spend a lot of time to launch services. This is a vital weakness when the trend is rapidly changing.
3. Growth-oriented strategy
One of main conflicts is the thing between Mark and Waldo. Waldo, CFO of Facebook as well as Mark’s friend, insisted that Facebook should focus the revenue source for a next growth. But Mark decided the growth itself and expaned its service area to Europe. Through this process, he got an investment fund from a venture capital.
If Mark tagged Ads on its service screen, it would be difficult to grow like where it is.