Ebc.nthu.edu.tw

Facebook Pro Project proposal
1. Introduction
Facebook is an extremely popular website, they have create most of their advisement thru words of mouth. Facebook Pro will help Facebook to create a better site, where not only young people can have fun, post pictures and like other people comments, but also work on their homework, group meetings, etc. It is also really useful for business companies and employees in order to have meetings; negotiate with customers, etc. What we are trying to do, is to change the way people see Facebook. For example, in most of the companies Facebook is block because it distracts the employees, but we believe that FB has the potential to be a powerful tool for business and their employees, even in some places f-commerce (facebook-commerce) is starting to emerge. With Facebook Pro we are trying to give FB a new look, not only where people can have fun, but also Capital Generation
Paypal invested in Facebook as their first investor in 2004. It helped Facebook to purchase the domain name
facebook.com for $200,000 USD. After it launched in the internet, its business performance attract Microsoft to purchase 1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million. By the end of 2010, Facebook reach the total value of $41 billion through the advertising and providing the virtual goods. In February of 2012, Facebook published news about their wishing of entering in the Security and Exchange Commission on May, to offer the public stock for 50 million. Capital and Stock
Facebook’s value was estimated to be around $75 billion to $100 billion according to the Wall Street Journal
report in 2012. It acquired Friend Feed in 2009 and Instagram in 2012. Employee Stock Option
Facebook has some key stockholder such as Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, Sean
Parker, Sheryl Sandberg, Chris Hughes etc. Facebook’s biggest stockholder is Mark Zuckerberg. He owned 28.2% share of Facebook. The employee own 21.6% of Facebook share in total. 2. Business Concept
Facebook is a social networking website to help people to make friends and connect with others who have similar interest and common value. Mark Zuckerberg said that sustainability of facebook depends on its members’ participation and contribution. In Facebook Pro, we would like to reinforce the existing features in Facebook Group with can serve as a all-in-one online office for user to discuss, generate ideas, share and edit document, and have an online meeting. Through the existing 901 million user membership, we can generate more profits by serving them this advance feature. Each user would only need to pay a small amount to upgrade their account to enjoy the 1 ress release). October 24, 2007. Retrieved November 8, 2007. 2 http://whoownsfacebook.com/ advance online office features in Facebook Pro. 3. Organization Structure
Each node represents one of the users. In which all of them are connected to share 4. Management Team
Facebook has competitive human resource capital from world wild. It has more than 3000 employee up to 2011. Facebook’s CEO and founder is Mark Zuckerberg. The COO and CFO are Sheryl Sandberg and David Ebersman respectively. They are work effectively and efficiency. 5. Current Product and Service
Facebook serve as a social network site for people to connect with others. It provides many types of functions on its site such as The Wall, Gift, Marketplace, Poke, Status, Events, Application, and Markup Language etc. User can create their profiles with their own photos, contract information and personal interest. They can communicate and connect with other users through the feature a chat and messages on Facebook. They can also create and join and create the “groups” and "like pages". 6. Analysis of Operation
Nature of Business
Facebook serve as the social network site to connect people from different location. It is free for user to create
their account and communicate with other people. It generates revenue from advertising and serving the Analysis of Marketing and Sales Condition
Facebook moved slightly up and become the top five of biggest company in USA. Facebook reached 63.18%
market share in the world compare with Twitter, Linkin, Google+ etc. It has 901 million users in 2012. Facebook’s revenue growth was from $153 million to $3.7 billion according to the financial statement from 2007 and 2011. It generates 85% revenue from advertisement and 12% income from serving the virtual goods 7. Concept about new project
Aims of developing Facebook Pro
The aim of this project is to develop a premium function (Facebook Pro) about office work in Facebook. It
uses to share information and gather a business meeting on Facebook so that to facilitate the team work in Details about Facebook Pro
Facebook Pro is a collaborative social network channel to support users to enjoy the aggregated office work
service in various functions. This plus functions include the document sharing and creation, collaborate the ideas in mind-mapping, presentation, i-cloud storage, and video conferencing. It provide an integrate channel for user to work with their team-mates and clients without time and location boundary. Facebook Pro is a real-time social work channel to support the office work on internet based. Multi-users can shared, edit, and download the documents at the same time. All documents can be update on Facebook Pro. Once the document has been edit, it will automatically be saved to prevent the document will be lose due to By using the i-cloud technology, Facebook Pro and be an online USB to storage the document. Once the user is online, all the works will be shown in the updated version. The user can also download a Facebook Pro Box to their computer. All the document of Facebook Pro will be downloading in Facebook Pro Box. Once the users connect to the network, Facebook Pro Box will be synced with the document on Facebook Pro, so the document on Facebook Pro will be downloaded automatically. Facebook Pro can also service in different way and support different devices to view, update, and edit the documents in anytime and anywhere such as computer, tap net and ipad. Facebook Pro supports in different language of document editing such as Traditional and Simplified Chinese and English to gives users a flexible Apart from above features, Facebook Pro will also provide a user-friendly interface design and search function for user to find the document which has been uploaded on the Facbook Pro. User can be easily to find What’s more, user can use the video conferencing service on Facebook Pro to gather the meeting or discussion with the team-mates or client in real time. Facebook Pro provides the convenience and cheapest way for user to connect with their partners or client anytime. In short, Facebook Pro is an advanced feature of Facebook about all-in-one online work office for users to work with their team-mates and clients. Through this channel, they can enjoy the effective and collaborative system to share the ideas and documents. Competitive advanges of Facebook Pro
(1) The only one chanel to provide all-in-one online office work
There are many competitors like Google, Prezi, Skype and Dropbox for Facebook Pro. However, those competitors are only threat with Facebook Pro for some features separately. They cannot provide the all-in-one features like Facbook Pro does. (2) The immense pool of existing Facebook members
The existing Facebook membership is the key unique value of Facebook Pro since users can connect with other group members easily. They can build their Facebook Pro Group by only certain clicks on their computers and choose the member in their exsiting Facebook network. Even some people are not the exsiting friends in their social network, user can still search on the Facebook easily in 901 million facbook user pool. Therefore, this helps them to build their team effectively (3) Organize Meeting with team member and doing the works together without location boundaries
Facebook Pro provides video conferencing for user to meet with other Facebook Group members in different locations for social, business or academic purpose. During the meeting, they can still use the Facebook Pro to share the document at the same time. It is not like Skype only chat with multi-member at the same time but also they can view and edit the document at the same time when they are using video conferencing. This will be more complete function for helping them to finish the team work. Just like they face to face to discuss with teammate and work (4) Support the different types of online-based documentation:
Facebook Pro support users to create documents in different formats like Mind master, MS word, Prezi. Even user upload the MS format file, user can still edit online and then save as the same format. There is no programming language problem with MS word or Prezi. Even user use Google doc. They still cannot enjoy this feature since Google doc only provide view only feature once the MS word upload to the server. Also, it does not support such many file documents for user to create and view on the internet. This is more competitive compare with Google (5) Work across functional with from different documents format:
Facebook Pro work across from different document formats such as .doc, .xls, .ppt, and .pdf. Users can create and storage the document on Facebook Pro in different formats. (6) Portable app in Mobile Devices
Facebook Pro support user to view and edit the documents on mobile devices once they install the Facebook Pro applications in their Smartphones, iPhones, iPads and tap-nets etc. For Google doc, it didn’t provide the app for user use the office application through mobile devices. This might be key advantages compare with Other unique Value of Facebook Pro
(1) Collect innovative ideas:
Through the mid-mapping function, the Facebook user (i.e. who are in the same group) can share their innovative (2) Support the cloud-based storage service:
Facebook Pro will support the cloud-based storage service for user to upload and download their documents or file. They can share the documents in the Facebook Group or by the URL link. (3) Function in real-time collaboration:
Multi-user can edit the documents in real time collaboration supported by the cloud-based storage. They can edit the mind map, MS Word and presentations at the same time. (4) Synchronize storage:
Through installs the Facebook Pro applications on the computer, it will support user’s document to be synchronized with the documents that has been stored in Facebook Pro. (5) Works in different browsers:
Facebook Pro provides users with a flexible way to discuss with group mates and share document anytime, anywhere on different online browser. They can access or edit the document on different browser like Internet Explore, Firefox or Google chrome. They can also access or edit the document in mobile device with browser in (6) Access controls:
Facebook Pro users can set the privacy of the document they share on Facebook Group. The user who uploads the file can select who can access or edit the documents. User can also only share the document through the URL link to make more secure about the access of the document. 8. Current Competitive environment
There are two similar social site (i.e. Google Doc and Saleforce) has similar functions to support the online office work. However, there are some existing weakness of Google Doc and Saleforce. For Google Doc, user cannot be notified the changes if other user change the content of the document. Once it has been edit, it cannot be return to the previous stage. Also, there is only limited storage 1GB for Google Doc user to save their document on Google Doc, so user need to pay more to get the more storage on Google Doc. For Salesforce, user can only share the document online but they cannot edit the document together in real time collaboration, so it might cause some difficulty when they want to work together in the difference places. 9. Short Term Development Plan
Marketing Plan
In short term, we would like to generate more Facebook user have a tastes for Facbook Pro feature. Therefore,
Facebook will allow user to enjoy the monthly plan about new features for free. To achieve this, Facebook will show the banner ads on everyone wall page to promote this event. In this promotion, we hope we can generate more than 10% of existing users to join this promotion plan and have experience about Facebook Pro. After the promotion, we would send a questionnaire for those users who have participated in this plan to After the users has experience of this new feature. Retain the members to add this premium feature would be important. The membership component is essential for promoting the new features of Facebook Pro in second stage. For those Facebook existing users who successfully to invite their friends to become a member to add the Facebook Pro premium features, they can enjoy the extra storage in Facebook cloud. To facilitate the promotion, Facebook will automatically to send an in-box message for existing users to remind them to upgrade their account with a special price. Once they join it and add the new features, they can send an invitation message to invite their friends to upgrade their account to premium in order to enjoy the new Moreover, Facebook Pro will provide 3 level of membership for user to join based on the storage requirement to join different plan: 5GB for $5USD/MTH, 10GB for $10/MTH and 20+GB for $20USD/MTH. The market segmentation will be student from university and college, and business man. There will be around 86milion user that we are target. The more details will show in financial part. Development Plan
Conducting the marketing research is important for developing the new features for Facebook. It helps to
gather the information about the existing products’ strengths and weakness like Google Doc and Salesforce. So, the product development team can base on those research data to design the Facebook Pro features which are become more realistic and fulfill the most users’ want. This will finish within in one month. The development team might also connect with Microsoft to develop this project. This is because we would like to support the document view and edit for Microsoft Office document online. So, we need to discuss with Microsoft and develop the Facebook Pro together. As Microsoft has 1.6% share of Facebook, we might increase its share of Facebook as a reward for Microsoft to develop this plan together. After that, the development team can develop the Facebook Pro and improve its features after coordinating with Microsoft and analyzing the marketing research. Perhaps, it will take around half year to finish this work which includes coordinate and consult with Microsoft, design the Facebook Pro interface and test the function. Since this is advance feature of Facebook and will be support in mobile device, we need to develop the Facebook Pro app for computer and mobile device to support it operation. The development team will build the app in 3 months includes the design and the test the app. Once the app available serve on Android, itunes, and internet for user to download, it will allow the user to provide the feedback and give the rating on the After it really launch on the market, it would be the beta version for user to taste the function and provides the feedback for us to get the improvement before we launch the final version. This will takes around 1 month for use beta version and provide the feedback. After that, we will improve the mistakes in one month. So the total Operation Scale
Since we are targeting for world wile user, the benefits might be generate from students and business people.
According to the marketing research, more than 85% of college students will use the Facebook. Also, 96% of university students will use Facebook. As those students might need to discuss with other teammates for their group projects, this is a big potential for student to join our plan in order to do the academic group project. Besides, more than 70% of users are older than age 18 according to the marketing research. They might be employed or the business man. This is also a potential for the company to use our service in order to finish their group projects, since this can help each team members to collaborate their work together anytime According to the marketing research we have conducted, we will generate around 14% of existing user (12.6 million user) to use this service in the first year with the growth rate of 10% in coming years. We hope that we can gain $5 of each user in each month based on the plan that we provided. Survey about Facebook Pro Sample number: 22
1) If Facebook would have Skype, Drop box, Google documents all together. Would you will be willing to pay Acceptance
2) If your answer is no. Please specify why. Drox box, Skype, Google doc, offers the services 3) If your answer is no. After a year, if you see that everyone is starting to use it, will you join them? 6 SOCIAL NETWORKING USAGE AND GRADES AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS, A Study to Determine the Correlation Of Social Media Usage and Grades, Chuck Martin 7 4) If your answer is yes. Please specify why. 10. Long Term Development Plan
Marketing Plan
In future, we would like to generate more profits on this advance application. We hope that more than 40%
user will use this advance feature especially for students and workers. We will keep providing the promotion plan for users to invite the new user. For those who invite the new users to upgrade their account, they will enjoy a extra free cloud based storage with 20MB up to 20GB. Besides, we will offer the birthday gift based on the user’s profile. For the new user, we will offer 50% discount off to join any plan for first month. For the existing user, we will offer them 50% discount off to upgrade their existing plan. Also, will 30% discount off if they join the upgraded plan for one year. We will also keep using the social media to promote this plan. Moreover, as we can see that every university students need to conduct their group project in semester. This might be a potential to invite more universities to assist the students to use this service. We might offer the universities a special plan which allows the students to use our service with special price. For more details, we will conduct more research to develop this plan. Development Plan
The only to generate the new customers and retain the existing user is improvement. Thus, we will keep
providing the new features in order to improve our service. In the first new feature, we would like to add in a feature related to edit the graph with multi-users. Since editing graph is wasting time for one people to finish. We hope that this new features can help to push the team work especially for the users digital or graphic team work. This might be attracting the media firm or advertising firm to job this plan. In future, we will conduct more research to find out whether this new feature will attract people to use our service or not. At this time, there is no competitor provides this service, so this might be a potential for attracting the new user. Operation Scale
From 2011 to 2015, the home office market will reached 2 million of home-based businesses. The home
office households will also add up to more than 3 million. Therefore, this is big potential for the companies to use Facebook Pro service especially for home-based business. We hope that we can also generate the new customer about 14% of 2 million of home-based businesses user with 10% growth rate from 2011 to 2015. 11. Future development
Opportunities:
Facebook market is growing everyday really fast in some countries, in some countries the growing rate is over
With the new application we believe that the number would increase even more, because it would attract new people in the market. Even if only 5-10% of the facebook user decides to buy the application, the profit would be high for the company. It will increase the value of Facebook in the market, since the IPO will be on May; it won’t have effect on it. With this new idea we hope it will increase the value of the stocks, which has Potential threats:
1. Since the new application is important for business, FB Pro will be extremely careful about security; this
will be the application number 1 priority. 2. Some people still resist paying for this kind of service. 3. People under 18 usually don’t have credit cards. 4. Some people think that is better to work with Skype, dropbox, google doc in separate ways than work with Financial Plan:
Facebook market is growing everyday really fast in some countries, in some countries the growing rate is over With the new application we believe that the number would increase even more, because it would attract new Even if only 5-10% of the facebook user decides to buy the application, the profit would be high for the It will increase the value of Facebook in the market, since the IPO will be on May; it won’t have effect on it. But in the future for the value of its stock and the happiness of the investors it will increase the value of the It will give the user all the tools they need in a social network, there is no need to have 12. Financial Plan:
Since we do not have sufficient technology to develop this plan, we would like to sell the plan to Facebook for $200,000 or for a number of shares of Facebook. So, the operation costs would be in charge of the company who bought the product. When the idea is sold, the terms of the contract are established first. If keeping the website working is included in the contract, the company who sell the idea is in charge of it, but the price would be higher. For the maintenance of the product, programmers are needed, and also marketers, in order to satisfy the customers’ needs. If the maintenance is not include in the contract, all the maintain cost are in charge of the company who bought the product. The below data is reference about the financial plan for Facebook Pro. This is about the data of marketing research that we have conducted in NCTU with 22 interviewees. Market Growth Analysis
Potential Customers
Total user in existing
membership in first year
Growth rate
The growth at the beginning would be larger than in the future, because after that, the competition will start to grow and that will make the market share to split between each of the companies offering the services. That is why we have that the growth per potential customers will be different for each sector. For example the number of university student users is around 50 millions. Prediction of users’ choice
Capacity (GB)
Price($)
Users’ choice (%)
*Capacity refers to the storage plan that users will use. Based on this prediction, facebook will generate the profit USD$602million.
In the prediction users’ choice, we are referring that $5 is the price that will be paid by the user every month for a capacity of 5GB. $10 is the monthly price for 10GB, and $15 is the price for 20 GB. We predict that the number of users at the begging will prefer to choice the cheapest choice, that is why we assumed that the number of users’ who choose that option will be 70%. Market Prediction
Scenario
Probability
Total Market share (%)
Growth per year (%)
Break even analysis
The cost for this can be divided in three parts: Human resources, technology and promotion cost.
Human resources cost: Will be in charge of hiring people and training the new employees, they will have to
hire programmers and people with marketing experience. That would be around $USD 3K to hire one people. The team members to develop this plan would be 30 people. Total would be $1.08M Technology development cost: The technology cost would be the development cost and the data maintenance
Promotion cost: The promotion cost would be $20M per month for banner ads in Facebook and adwords in
Therefore, the total cost would be $1.08M + $200M + $240M = $440.08M Assume everyone use the cheapest plan, we generate the profit with 901M x 9.6% x $5= $ 432,480,000 The breakeven would be 440.08/ 432.48 = 1.018 year. Around 14 months, Facebook will cover the cost.
Profit
For us, the profit will be generated at the time we sell the idea. Facebook probably will decide to pay with
money or with stocks, in that case we would choose to receive the stocks, because we believe that the revenue in the future would be higher in that way. We have decided to sell the idea to $200,000 and the expenses for us will be: The cost of making a big survey, so we can forecast the number of people who will buy Facebook Pro. We would also have to include the marketing costs for it. The making of this idea, would take while, but in the future it will generate important revenues to Facebook. Assume everyone use the cheapest, we generate the profit with 901M x 9.6% x $5= $ 432,480,000 in first
Payment methods
There are some payment method that are not convenient for everyone, that is why we have included many
methods. For example, student can pay the Facebook Pro credit in a 7-11 or in any store nearby. Another way to pay is including it in the phone bill. A lot of people have to pay phone bill every month, so the amount of money will be included in the bill. Basically, we will offer different payment methods including Paypal, 7-11 or other convenient store, Visa Card, Master card, Facebook Credit, Phone bills, internet bills, or other kind of bills. We hope that we can offer payment method as many as possible to fulfill different countries’ user. References:
(1) Facebook and Microsoft Expand Strategic Alliance"(Press release). Microsoft. October 24, 2007. (4) http://whoownsfacebook.com/ (5) Social Media Usage and Grades, Chuck Martin

Source: http://www.ebc.nthu.edu.tw/StudentProject/ecPROJECT/02.pdf