Facebook
Summary
The world's most popular social media platform, featuring Groups, Pages, and Ads to help publishers engage with their audience.
Type of organisation: Publicly-listed company (or group)
Market share: Market dominance
Pricing: Highly variable depending on scale, from $1 to millions.
Factors driving pricing: Additional features, More audience (e.g. more subscribers, traffic), Ability to whitelabel or customise
Skills needed to set-up: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Skills needed to use: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Requires audience sign-in to use: Yes, sign-in compulsory
Type of organisation: Publicly-listed company (or group)
Market share: Market dominance
Pricing: Highly variable depending on scale, from $1 to millions.
Factors driving pricing: Additional features, More audience (e.g. more subscribers, traffic), Ability to whitelabel or customise
Skills needed to set-up: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Skills needed to use: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Requires audience sign-in to use: Yes, sign-in compulsory
Pros
Open Source alternatives available
Releases new features regularly
Shares product roadmap
Plain English TOS
Clear data policies
Has accessibility statement
Shares diversity data
Cons
Newsworthy business problems - U.S. regulator weighs action against Facebook over how its apps interact: report, EU agrees tough line on digital currencies like Facebook’s Libra, Why Everyone Is Angry at Facebook Over Its Political Ads Policy
Newsworthy technical issues - Facebook and Twitter data was exposed to developers through app store bug, Facebook promised transparency on political ads. Its system crashed days before the UK election, Facebook bug accesses iPhone’s camera while user scrolls through News Feed, Facebook restoring service after major outage
Newsworthy security breaches - Facebook security breach: Up to 50m accounts attacked, Millions of Facebook user records exposed in data breach, Hundreds of Users Impacted in Twitter and Facebook Data Breach
Full Product Data Collection
Data collected January-February 2020
| Product name | |
| Product URL | https://www.facebook.com/ |
| Parent organisation | N/A |
| Workflow category | Audience engagement & monetisation |
| Date product founded | 2004 |
| Product description | The world’s most popular social media platform, featuring Groups, Pages, and Ads to help publishers engage with their audience. |
| What type of company or organisation is the product owned by? | Publicly-listed company (or group) |
| Is the company profit-making? | Yes, profitable |
| How is this product funded? | Advertising |
| What market share does the tool have? | Market dominance |
| Is there an Open Source alternative in this product space? | Yes. Diaspora, Mastodon |
| When did the company last release new features? | December 2019: New ad-reporting tools for advertisers |
| Have they shared details of the product roadmap? | Yes. Photo exports to Google Photos (H1 2020. Limited rollout in Ireland now), Off-Facebook Activity privacy tool (TBC, very limited rollout now), Facebook Horizon VR app (2020). |
| Is there talk of the product raising further investment? | No |
| Is there talk of the product being acquired? | No |
| Have there been any newsworthy business issues or challenges in the last 12 months? | Yes. U.S. regulator weighs action against Facebook over how its apps interact: report, EU agrees tough line on digital currencies like Facebook’s Libra, Why Everyone Is Angry at Facebook Over Its Political Ads Policy |
| Is there a pricing model listed on the website? | No / cannot find |
| How clear & transparent is this pricing model? | N/A no pricing model listed |
| What is the range of prices offered? | Highly variable depending on scale, from $1 to millions. |
| What factors drive higher pricing? | Additional features, More audience (e.g. more subscribers, traffic), Ability to whitelabel or customise |
| What skills are needed to get this tool set up & usable? | Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it) |
| What skills are needed to USE this tool day-to-day? | Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it) |
| Does this tool use proprietary file formats for saving documents & outputs? | Cannot tell |
| Is the product reliant on 3rd-party APIs or interoperability to function? | No |
| Have there been any newsworthy technical issues in the last 3 years? | Yes. Facebook and Twitter data was exposed to developers through app store bug, Facebook promised transparency on political ads. Its system crashed days before the UK election, Facebook bug accesses iPhone’s camera while user scrolls through News Feed, Facebook restoring service after major outage |
| How clear is the Terms of Service for users (i.e. publishing customers)? | Simplified, plain English TOS |
| Does the product have a data collection & usage policy on its website? (Can be a GDPR statement)? | Yes, comprehensive. |
| Is their data policy “GDPR everywhere”? | GDPR unclear on these details |
| Does the product require your audience to sign-in to use it? | Yes, sign-in compulsory |
| IF SIGN IN REQUIRED: Does audience sign-in use 3rd party platforms? | Yes. Facebook authentication |
| Does the public product website mention how to export or transfer your data to another service? | Only partial exports available |
| Does the public product website mention how to delete your data? | Only limited deletion available |
| Have there been any newsworthy security breaches with this product in the last 3 years? | Yes. Facebook security breach: Up to 50m accounts attacked, Millions of Facebook user records exposed in data breach, Hundreds of Users Impacted in Twitter and Facebook Data Breach |
| Does the company have an accessibility statement on its website? | Yes |
| Does the company release information on the diversity of the workforce? | Yes |