Analysis of Relational Technology Tool Research Paper

Analysis of Relational Technology Tool - Research Paper Example These aspects are covered with an eye towards being able to understand the achievement of the function of Facebook as a relational technology; the application of Facebook to one aspect of computer-mediated communication or CMC; critiquing how Facebook supports the achievement of the goals of CMC; and making recommendations on better means of accomplishing the goals related to CMC (Lord, 2003; Barnes, 2002). Facebook touts itself as being in the business of creating products that provide utility value to advertisers, developers and end-users, through the Facebook platform. That platform is a social media platform that end-users utilize to be able to connect and interact with their families and friends, as well as to know more about the world through the news and the shared information from friends and created pages that are made possible through their being posted on the social media platform. Developers have a stake in making use of the platform to create applications that leverage t he user base and the technical and social media strength of the platform. Advertisers on the other hand, as the third leg of the ecosystem after users and developers, can leverage the large user base of Facebook and the social nature of their interactions to reach large targeted audiences for their products and services (Google, 2013). The end-user focused products are many and have been well-developed and evolved after many years of use by millions of users around the world. Those products are made available to users on the Facebook platform, which in turn can be accessed from a host of devices, from personal computers to tablets to smart phones by the largest providers of devices in the world, from Apple to Android devices to other operating system platforms and form factors. The key end-user products include Timeline, News Feed, Places, Pages, and the photo uploading service. There is also an email and a chat facility to complement the other forms of sharing and communication on the platform. News Feed is a personalized platform for the sharing of information, news and status posts from friends, from various Pages, and from other parties that have presence on Facebook. Pages are user-created Facebook pages that cater to various content and interests providers and enthusiasts, and include Fan pages for artists, pages for news and media organizations, official pages of artists and public figures, and the like. The scale of the Pages product is demonstrated in the stat which says that as of the second quarter of 2012, about 42 million pages exist on Facebook, that have ten or more Likes. Likes is a Facebook feature that allows users to tag posts and Pages that they like. The photo service is another end-user product that allows users to upload, share and archive digital images on Facebook. The Places product, meanwhile, allows users to share their locations and the places that they visit to friends and family. The tagging functionality in the Photos app allows for another layer of social sharing of photos that include information on the users who are in the photos. This is a social way of annotating and sharing the photos (Reuters, 2013). II. History of the