8: Roger's Diffusion of Ideas as it relates to Facebook

Diffusion of Innovations breaks down a timeline of how every innovation or idea is adopted and ultimately matures. This social science theory was developed in 1962 by E.M. Rogers. It looks at how a product, idea, or behavior is adopted. In order for this to happen, people must do something differently than they previously had. This could be buying a new product, acting differently, or performing a new behavior. This process does not happen simultaneously for everyone. Within a population or social system, some people adopt innovations more quickly than others. There are 5 categories of adopters who act differently. It is important to understand all of them even though the majority of people fall into 2 of the 5 categories. Innovators are the first, and they are the smallest group. This group is interested in new ideas and wants to be the first to try out new innovations. They are willing to take risks, and companies do not need to do much work to interest them. Early Adopters is the second group. These people tend to be in leadership roles and embrace change. They do not need to be convinced to change, and they are influenced most effectively through how-to manuals and information sheets. Early Majority and Late Majority are the two largest groups, and they are fairly similar. These groups are willing to adopt after some convincing, and they are reached most effectively through success stories of the innovation being used by the earlier adopters. Laggards is the final group, and they are conservative and traditional people. They are skeptical of change, and it takes more work to convince them. Some of the best approaches for this group are fear appeals, statistics, and pressure from the other groups. While focusing on the majority groups may be enticing, they are mainly influenced by the opinions and reviews of the Innovators and Early Adopters. It is important to interact with all of these groups, but each may require different forms of convincing.

Illustration of Roger's Diffusion of Innovations

This theory of Diffusion of Innovations can be applied to any new product, behavior, or idea.  For example, Facebook began as a platform strictly for Harvard students.  College students are a great group of Innovators, especially for technology.  As Facebook expanded, more college campuses and some businesses began to use the social networking site.  After these Early Adopters used the site and the company made adjustments, they began to build momentum and were able to release the site for use to anyone with a valid email address over the age of 13.  Now, the Early Majority were using the site.  It was available to many more people, but not everyone immediately made an account.  As more people began to use the site, they shared their thoughts and opinions of it with friends and family.  This motivated the Late Majority to make an account.  Laggards may still be holding out, but some have absolutely been swayed into joining the site.  With the diffusion of Facebook's site, it currently has 2.37 billion active monthly users and is the largest social networking site today.

7: Protecting Dissent - An Important Value of Free Expression

As discussed in this week's Media Law & Literacy class, there are several important values that are necessary under the First Amendment to maintain truly free expression.  These 8 values are: the Marketplace of Ideas, Participation in Self-Government, Stable Change, Individual Self-Fulfillment, Check on Governmental Power, Promote Tolerance, Promote Innovation, and Protect Dissent.  While all of these are important, I will be focusing on the idea of protecting dissent for this blog post.

As the photo above says, "speech that everyone agrees with needs no protection."  It is important to protect dissent because it is by definition "the expression or holding of opinions at variance with those previously, commonly, or officially held."  Everyone has their own beliefs, opinions, preferences, etc.  We are all unique individuals.  There are very few things, if any, that everyone agrees on.  If there is an agreement, people have their own perspective of the issue even when they ultimately agree.  Every issue has multiple sides, and it is important to protect all of them equally.  If the minority in an argument is silenced, America would not be the land of the free.  As time passes, that minority opinion may turn into a majority opinion.  It is essential that all opinions are shared and heard because it leads to the best outcome.  When brainstorming, all ideas are laid out to pick the best one.  With dissent, everyone is sharing their opinion and they may have a perspective that was not addressed.  We are all entitled to our own thoughts and beliefs, even when they go against the popular opinion.

6: Facebook was an accident?

In 2003, Mark Zuckerberg was a second year student studying computer science at Harvard University.  He was ambitious, and his drive sometimes pushed him to take actions of questionable ethics in order to complete a project.  In October of his second year, he developed a website called Facemash.  This website was for photo comparison, and users would rate 2 side-by-side pictures as "hot" or "not."  It was only functioning for a few days before executives from Harvard shut it down.  They shut it down because Zuckerberg populated the website by hacking into Harvard's security network and using all of the student ID photos as his website's photos.  He faced serious charges, as well as potential expulsion, but eventually all charges were dropped.

In 2004, Zuckerberg created a new website and called it TheFacebook.  The website was a social networking site for Harvard students only, named after directories that all students received.  It was launched in February, and again he was accused of being unethical in its production.  3 other students accused him of stealing their idea that they had named HarvardConnection.  They filed a lawsuit, but the issue was handled outside of the courtroom.

TheFacebook was slowly expanded and other universities began to gain access.  Later that year, Sean Parker became the company's president and changed the name to Facebook, as it is known today.  In 2006, Accel Partners invested $12.7 million into the company.  This allowed them to expand to high school students, and eventually anyone with a valid email address over the age of 13 was allowed to join the site later that year.  In 2009, Facebook was named the world's most used social networking service.

According to an article about Facebook's history, the site's profits, as well as Zuckerberg's antics, led to him becoming the world's youngest multi-billionaire.  He has made many charitable donations and pledges.  However, some people are still unsure about the ethics of his rise to fame.  While making donations and helping the needy is noble, his actions since 2003 have not all been completely honest or favorable.  Whether people agree with his methods or not, he created an extremely successful company that made him billions of dollars.  Either way, he has come a long way from his Facemash idea to a global social networking site.