Facebook is a social networking app that connects people from different areas. As a college student, Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook with his fellow college friends Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew McCollum, and Chris Hughes. At first, Facebook was available for only Harvard College students (founders’ college), then the membership expanded to other North American Universities. Later in 2006, Facebook was open to everyone above 13 years. In 2020 Facebook claimed to have 2.8 billion regularly active users. It ranked 4th position in global internet usage. Facebook is an easy-to-use app that can be used on any device be it a smartphone, Personal computer, laptop, or tablet. So, today we are going to discuss about Facebook and its Competitors in this article.
How does it work?
To use the app, one must first create an account. Only a person above 13 years old can create a Facebook account. Once the account is created it is easily accessible on any device like a smartphone, Personal Computers, Laptops, or tablets. Once the user filled out the required information, his profile was created.
What are the Applications that can be a tough competitors for Facebook?
Facebook has become a go-to application for our passing time. It has become like a brand name on social networks. But today, there are many other apps also which give the same features as Facebook. You interact with people, post photos, share your thoughts, chat with friends, etc. But few apps gave a tuff time to Facebook because of the increase in popularity and increase in users. Some of the apps also have different features but still, a tough competitors of facebook. They are:
LinkedIn (2003) :
LinkedIn is a different app in terms of its features. It is launched in 2003, this app is used as a Professional and Job-oriented application, where people share their profiles to engage in more professional connections. Whereas Facebook is an app that connects with friends. But still, both compete with each other because of the involvement of consumers. LinkedIn has emerged as an authentic and reliable app when it comes to going for a Professional app.
Active users: 310 million users monthly basis
YouTube (2005):
YouTube is an online video-sharing application launched 2 years before Facebook came into existence in 2005. Like LinkedIn YouTube is also one of its kinds of application. People use this app for watching, sharing, uploading, and downloading videos. Since it came before Facebook it has already grabbed a large group audience. Today date also people spend most of their time browsing YouTube whether a song, movie clip, news, etc.
Active users: 122 million per day
Twitter (2006):
Twitter is social networking and microblogging application where people write their thoughts known as “tweets”. Signed-in people can like, tweet and re-tweet tweets whereas people who haven’t signed in can only read publicly available tweets. On Facebook people can write their thoughts in as many words as they want, there is no limitation. On Twitter also people can write their thoughts called tweets but there is a limitation of only 280 characters. Twitter and Facebook always compete with each other to grab users’ attention.
Active users: 330 million monthly basis
Snapchat (2011):
Snapchat is an instant messaging application, developed by Bobby Murphy, Evan Spiegel, and Reggie Brown in 2011. Snapchat is the app that first introduced the concept of Stories (pictures that can be visible for 24-hrs only) It also allows its users to keep their photos in the “my eyes only” which is a password-protected area. It also set the trend of “filtered picture” It is said to be the fastest growing social networking application. Inspired by Snapchat, Facebook added some of its features like 24-hrs later vanishing Stories and options for different filters in the Facebook camera. These features were also added to Facebook’s subsidiary apps like messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Active users: 332 million per day
TikTok (2016):
TikTok is a short-filming online video-sharing application. This app is fully focused on video making and sharing concepts. Like Facebook or Twitter, one can’t chat or post their thoughts, but still, it gave a tuff time to Facebook. Since the time it was accessible worldwide it became one of the most popular applications. The way people denote social networking apps like Facebook and similarly short-filming video sharing apps is dented as TikTok. TikTok was created by the Chinese Company ByteDance in 2016. In the initial days, it was only available in the Chinese market. In 2017 it was accessible for Android and iOS in some areas other than Mainland China. Later in 2018, TikTok merged with another Chinese Social media app “Musical.ly” and became accessible worldwide. TikTok is one the biggest Competitor of Facebook in today’s time.
Active users: 1.2 billion monthly basis
Conclusion
Though Facebook has so much competitors in the market still it has never lost its position. The reason it never stops improving. The app is still updating its features to accommodate its users with the best quality of services. It has also faced criticisms including Privacy Exploitation, engaging users for hours, Politically Manipulation, etc. but still came up from all this with a much-improved version.
