Article: Report: Facebook bought 750 patents from IBM
Source: CNN
Recently Facebook had stolen patents from Yahoo and is currently being sued. To stay away from being sued Facebook decided to buy patents for a semantic social network from IBM. With buying these they have been able to keep a "stockpile" and this discourages other social networks from rising up.
URL:http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/23/tech/social-media/facebook-ibm-patents/index.html
Question: Do you believe that Facebook is rising up, and will soon become the only social network that people visit. A legal "Monopoly"? why?
Personally, I do not think that Facebook is going to become a monopoly. I think that Facebook has a few major competitors, such as Twitter and Google+. These social networking sites are competing against Facebook and each other to see who has the most users. I think that as long as this need to be the biggest site exists, Facebook will not become a social network monopoly. Facebook may have the most users, but I think that for them to have a legal monopoly, they would have to have people leave other social networking sites and join theirs. In my opinion, this will never happen, so Facebook won't become a monopoly.
ReplyDeleteI agree with David that Facebook will not be a monopoly. He made really good points about Twitter and Google+. Although they are not as popular as Facebook, many people use them and they are steadily increasing. Social networks take time to build up because people have to hear about them to gain user's interests. A couple years ago, everyone had a Myspace, but Facebook still existed. It took years to build up to the site that it is today, and that is the same with Twitter and Google+. They need time to build up, and since they are building up, there is no way that Facebook could become a monopoly.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both David and Kayla. I believe that competing sites like Google+ and Twitter are going to keep Facebook in check. I believe once something becomes so popular online, people begin to move away from it and find something new. For example, take Mysapce; Myspace had been on high and was a very commonly used social networking site. Facebook then came into play and became popular. Although not as commonly used, Myspace still gets used today. I think that at some point Facebook will eventually head in that direction. They are making way too many changes to their site that is turning many people off from staying a part of their site. I am sure that two or three years from now, there will be a new social network on the rise.
ReplyDeleteI think that Facebook is just trying to cover their buts from being sued again. I do not think that Facebook is trying to rise up to conquer the other social networks but they are just trying to improve their own network. Although improving their network would not necessarily mean that they were better than the other sites, they may have an advantage to luring people in if they have a more creative and more efficient website. Overall, I don't think that Facebook is trying to become a monopoly because they are not taking over the other websites, but rather trying to be the best that they can be on their own.
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