Dissertation Help! Why MSN died and how the likes of Facebook etc. survived

[kanu92]

Hello,

I need some help regarding my dissertation. I'm currently having to redo it as my uni screwed me over. My topic of choice is Why MSN died and how the likes of Facebook etc. survived (sorry for mentioning Microsoft lol). The purpose of this is to find out as to why they decided to kill it off.

I'm looking at it in a way where the rise of social networks e.g. Facebook, twitter came into play and not only they became popular but how they did it. e.g. using smartphones like the iPhone and tablets. Something that MS didn't do. Therefore I'm looking for some stats (as I cant find ones that are relevant) to show when Apple and others came into the market and how the shift in power has gradually moved, with this I hope to show how the social networks gained more users. I will also show with change in tech allowed companies to create other Instant messengers. FB messenger, Whatsapp, Snapchat, etc.

sorry if its confusing but I would really appreciate it if anyone can help!!
thanks

 

[simsaladimbamba]

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What do you mean, you cannot find "stats to show when Apple and others came into the market"?
Have you looked at the iPhone Wiki article or the Samsung or Microsoft or Android Wiki articles and have found nothing you can use (via the sources they cite at the bottom) for a dissertation?

 

[mobilehaathi]

I don't mean to sound callous, but it doesn't bode well that you're coming to a forum on the internet for help with your dissertation. Do you have a committee with whom you can confer?

 

[Tomorrow]

I don't mean to sound callous, but it doesn't bode well that you're coming to a forum on the internet for help with your dissertation. Do you have a committee with whom you can confer?

The red flag for me was "the uni screwed me over." As a former student and former staff member, this is often code for, "I screwed up and the uni didn't give me the second chance I was hoping for."

 

[daflake]

The red flag for me was "the uni screwed me over." As a former student and former staff member, this is often code for, "I screwed up and the uni didn't give me the second chance I was hoping for."

LOL, my thoughts exactly! Time to put on our adult pants now.

 

[sigamy]

I'm no expert but I believe the rise and fall of social networks can be attributed to changes in technology, volume of users and fashion or current trends.

MSN (and before it, Prodigy, AOL, CompuServe) were all replaced over time when something better came along and then users moved to that something better.

These first batch of networks ran of course only on computers. These were mostly closed systems. That means you need specific software and an account. Most were paid services and some were also your ISP. This was key.

This was before the big web ads revolutions. So again, most of these closed systems thought that revenue would come from subscription model. Turns out, they were wrong. Ads and eyeballs is the way to go.

Then, in late 1990s and into 2000s a few things happened. First, the rise of the web and open web standards. This meant you could get information without having to use CompuServe or MSN. Over time, the quantity and quality of information you could get on the "real" internet was better than what you could find on the closed networks.

Next, (speaking about US here), the rise of broadband and more generic ISPs. This meant that your "internet provider" no longer needed to supply the content. They just needed to supply your on-ramp to the Information Superhighway (TM)

Look at the AOL Time Warner merger. This is widely viewed as one of the worst business deals ever made. They really thought combining content with access was going to be the future. Same with MS buying WebTV, making MSN and then MSNBC. Combining TV with interactive and online.

What these companies didn't realize was the exponential growth of the web as a platform for anyone to publish. People--not companies--starting creating great content. This led to more users of the web, which led to more content. Just look at MacRumors...probably one of the top 10 (top 5) sites for Apple news, information and detailed help. This site was created by individuals, not Time Warner, NY Times or MS.

As for Facebook and Twitter....yes, the explosion of mobile has helped these companies. Pull some stats on internet access via desktop and mobile. For most of the world, their phone is their access to the internet.

But, I'm an old man now so I'm a bit of a grouch. I simply do not see FB and Twitter passing the test of time. Remember MySpace, del.ic.ious, RSS? All I hear on podcasts now is that Twitter has replaced RSS. I agree. But guess what? Something, someday will replace Twitter.

Yes, if today's players are big enough and rich enough they can just keep purchasing all the "next big things", ie, Instagram. But these leads to wrong bets over time. MS had more money than God and they didn't win the internet or mobile.

Kids don't want to hang out in the same place as their parents. Something new will come along and supplant FB.

There was a point in the late 1990s that at the end of every TV commercial they said "AOL Keyword: blah, blah". Now they all say "Like us", "Follow us"...

Trends come and go. Technology advances. What stays the same is that people want to communicate and share things with "friends". That will remain. That is the killer feature.

Companies that find ways to keep the users, secure their privacy and offer cool features will survive.

 

[kanu92]

No my supervisor is an idiot and doesn't know anything about IT. MY 2 important years at uni have been bad down to the fact that nearly all of my teachers left leaving me and my fellow peers in the **** as no one was helping us. Our top teachers were replaced by average joes with most of them not knowing the subject they were suppose to teach.

I had no place to go and ended up completing my dissertation on time and submitted it but because of lack of guidance me and about 10 others of my peers have been made to redo our dissertation as a first submission. Basically I still get another chance to get a decent mark and it's not capped.

This is why I'm asking for help on here.

 

[mobilehaathi]

No my supervisor is an idiot and doesn't know anything about IT. MY 2 important years at uni have been bad down to the fact that nearly all of my teachers left leaving me and my fellow peers in the **** as no one was helping us. Our top teachers were replaced by average joes with most of them not knowing the subject they were suppose to teach.

I had no place to go and ended up completing my dissertation on time and submitted it but because of lack of guidance me and about 10 others of my peers have been made to redo our dissertation as a first submission. Basically I still get another chance to get a decent mark and it's not capped.

This is why I'm asking for help on here.

I hope your dissertation is more coherent...

 

[daflake]

No my supervisor is an idiot and doesn't know anything about IT. MY 2 important years at uni have been bad down to the fact that nearly all of my teachers left leaving me and my fellow peers in the **** as no one was helping us. Our top teachers were replaced by average joes with most of them not knowing the subject they were suppose to teach.

I had no place to go and ended up completing my dissertation on time and submitted it but because of lack of guidance me and about 10 others of my peers have been made to redo our dissertation as a first submission. Basically I still get another chance to get a decent mark and it's not capped.

This is why I'm asking for help on here.

Again, I am not really buying it. You have resources within any school that could have helped you, you just decided not to go that route. I had a professor not really show for an on-line course once. I contacted the school and worked with them until he was replaced.

Is this dissertation for a PhD? If so, what is your thesis statement? This "Why MSN died and how the likes of Facebook etc. survived" is very broad and not very coherent. You need something a little more concise if you are going to have a paper that is even remotely decent.

 

[kanu92]

daflake, i don't mean to sound rude but I don't need a lecture on what I should have done because I've stressed every possible route to receive help or guidance for my dissertation. This is a Bachelors degree. I've gone to the head of department, deputy/head principle of the uni. All they have done for us is provide us with extensions for our projects.

Because they know they have messed up big time by sacking teachers. Uni is suppose to be one of the best times of your life, but for me the last 2 years have been the worst. Nothing but disappointment.

 

[iBanker]

Mac forum for dissertation help, is this a PhD is some humanities? Strap up and do some research.

 

[daflake]

daflake, i don't mean to sound rude but I don't need a lecture on what I should have done because I've stressed every possible route to receive help or guidance for my dissertation. This is a Bachelors degree. I've gone to the head of department, deputy/head principle of the uni. All they have done for us is provide us with extensions for our projects.

Because they know they have messed up big time by sacking teachers. Uni is suppose to be one of the best times of your life, but for me the last 2 years have been the worst. Nothing but disappointment.

Well if that was the case, I would have gone to a different school (seriously). You're the one that came on here complaining about your school screwing you over. Sadly what they don't teach any longer is that you are in control of your education.

As for the rest, I asked you other questions that you failed to answer. As this is a bachelors program, your "dissertation" is more of a capstone paper which needs to be narrowed down to a topic that isn't so broad. Asking for guidance on a public forum like this is also probably not the best of ideas either. Do you have access to the Uni library? I highly recommend that you start there and allow people who are trained to do this show you how to properly refine your topic and then research it. I'm not trying to be a jerk, just giving you honest and open advice. I am sure you have access to various databases to gather proper research. That, is where you need to start.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I don't mean to sound callous, but it doesn't bode well that you're coming to a forum on the internet for help with your dissertation. Do you have a committee with whom you can confer?

The red flag for me was "the uni screwed me over." As a former student and former staff member, this is often code for, "I screwed up and the uni didn't give me the second chance I was hoping for."

Guys, I'm with you both on this one. As with you both, and, as a former faculty member myself, the tone and content of the OP's post………does not exactly fill one with confidence…..

I'm no expert but I believe the rise and fall of social networks can be attributed to changes in technology, volume of users and fashion or current trends.

………..
Trends come and go. Technology advances. What stays the same is that people want to communicate and share things with "friends". That will remain. That is the killer feature.

Companies that find ways to keep the users, secure their privacy and offer cool features will survive.

Very good, thoughtful, well-written and interesting post.

No my supervisor is an idiot and doesn't know anything about IT. MY 2 important years at uni have been bad down to the fact that nearly all of my teachers left leaving me and my fellow peers in the **** as no one was helping us. Our top teachers were replaced by average joes with most of them not knowing the subject they were suppose to teach.

I had no place to go and ended up completing my dissertation on time and submitted it but because of lack of guidance me and about 10 others of my peers have been made to redo our dissertation as a first submission. Basically I still get another chance to get a decent mark and it's not capped.

This is why I'm asking for help on here.

Asking for help is one thing; however, both the tone and content of your posts do little to………encourage some of us here to wish to help you.

I hope your dissertation is more coherent...

Agreed.

Again, I am not really buying it. You have resources within any school that could have helped you, you just decided not to go that route. I had a professor not really show for an on-line course once. I contacted the school and worked with them until he was replaced.

Is this dissertation for a PhD? If so, what is your thesis statement? This "Why MSN died and how the likes of Facebook etc. survived" is very broad and not very coherent. You need something a little more concise if you are going to have a paper that is even remotely decent.

Very well said.

daflake, i don't mean to sound rude but I don't need a lecture on what I should have done because I've stressed every possible route to receive help or guidance for my dissertation. This is a Bachelors degree. I've gone to the head of department, deputy/head principle of the uni. All they have done for us is provide us with extensions for our projects.

Because they know they have messed up big time by sacking teachers. Uni is suppose to be one of the best times of your life, but for me the last 2 years have been the worst. Nothing but disappointment.

Look, you came on here asking for help. You have received replies from three individuals whom I know to have had considerable experience of teaching at university level. This means that we know and understand - and yes, sometimes even sympathise with - the student mindset.

However, it also means that we know the nonsense that students can sometimes come up with, and, asking for help, while taking such a tone, and dismissing the well intentioned advice tendered by daflake "I don't wish to be rude" (well, then, don't be rude; I suggest that you listen and pay heed instead, as you might then actually learn something and profit from such an exchange of views….)

Seriously, if you ask for help, don't deride the answers you get, especially from those who have some experience, knowledge and insight of the university sector. Above all, take some responsibility for your life and your work; this should start with asking some intelligent questions of the area you propose to write about.

Well if that was the case, I would have gone to a different school (seriously). Your the one that came on here complaining about your school screwing you over. Sadly what they don't teach any longer is that you are in control of your education.

As for the rest, I asked you other questions that you failed to answer. As this is a bachelors program, your "dissertation" is more of a capstone paper which needs to be narrowed down to a topic that isn't so broad. Asking for guidance on a public forum like this is also probably not the best of ideas either. Do you have access to the Uni library? I highly recommend that you start there and allow people who are trained to do this show you how to properly refine your topic and then research it. I'm not trying to be a jerk, just giving you honest and open advice. I am sure you have access to various databases to gather proper research. That, is where you need to start.

I agree.

 

[jav6454]

The red flag for me was "the uni screwed me over." As a former student and former staff member, this is often code for, "I screwed up and the uni didn't give me the second chance I was hoping for."

That stated... I think we can offer a small token of information. However, bear in mind that, you should take what we give with a grain of salt as it's user base information. Nothing really backs us up except out word for it.

 

[Carlanga]

Dear members, I feel sad reading your responses to a person that is doing something to get ahead in life. While he is rough around the edges, he is probably just feeling so bad that he even had to come and create a new username to ask for help from random internet people. It appears the OP is attending what is referred to as a diploma mill university since this is a classic example of staff leaving for greener pastures that is then being replaced cheaply. Is a shame such schools exist because the student is stuck w a bad education and loans they can't liquidate when they can't get a job with said degree.

OP, I recommend you go to a library, one that has books and journals about technology etc. In there it should be pretty easy to find your answer with proper sources. Sources are one of the main thing to have in your thesis to back up your claims, thoughts, etc.

Clients get replaced every x years for a new 'better' thing: ICQ<MSN<BBM<MySpace<Facebook<Future each one improving in some factor from the one before. You have to take into consideration the social, financial, technical and trends on each time to understand the rise and fall. Facebook has done many things to keep themselves on top that the others never did until it was too late: reinvention, assets, liquidity, simplicity, trends, new tech, more options, ads, personal info grabbing, $$$, etc.

One thing you must remember, is that no matter in history who is the current top dog / empire, there is a time it will fall. Some things die exponentially faster, others are random, etc.

Good luck,

Go to a library, research journals, articles, and books. Talk to the librarian about the subject you are interested, they can be a big help in showing you stuff you wouldn't have thought to look at.
Hire someone to correct your grammar and sentence formation if you feel you are lacking in that department.

Writing a thesis is hard work, I did 2 majors in college, my second was Anthropology, I had to write a thesis, took me 6 months to do the reading research, trips to the countryside for interviews, maps by decades, genetics, etc etc etc on top of all my other classes. My research was on Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome and how culture, biology and double neck population segregations affected the creation of various mutations in HPS patients by very specific regions.

You can't expect to do a thesis in a weekend and get a passing grade . I can tell you that your current title is not a thesis title, maybe grab a book about how to write a thesis also.

 

[daflake]

Please don't get me wrong, we have two separate topics here. One is the whiny "uni screwed me over" bit which was addressed and the second was the topic of his/her thesis. My undergrad was in CS, and I am more than willing to help, but I am not simply going to toss information out. Instead, I want to help the OP by getting him/her to turn on their brain and work for it. It is easy to turn to the internet for help and information, but as I said in my second post we need to have a much better refined thesis statement to work with anyway. The topic is too broad which will make any information gleaned from this thread pointless. Also, we can't provide scholastic level research for him/her, just opinions.

I asked questions and the OP never answered. My guess is that he/she would rather be spoon fed.

 

[mobilehaathi]

My research was on Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome and how culture, biology and double neck population segregations affected the creation of various mutations in HPS patients by very specific regions.

A bit random, but do you mean population bottleneck?

 

[Carlanga]

A bit random, but do you mean population bottleneck?

Sorry, yes! It was late and on my phone. It should have said population "double" bottlenecks and geographical segregation. The official title of the thesis was more refined of course and in Spanish. PR is called the HPs island because there are many people that suffer the rare condition vs other parts of the world.

 

[mobilehaathi]

Sorry, yes! It was late and on my phone. It should have said population "double" bottlenecks and geographical segregation. The official title of the thesis was more refined of course and in Spanish. PR is called the HPs island because there are many people that suffer the rare condition vs other parts of the world.

I looked up that disease in brief, and, wow, the incidence in PR is insanely high compared to elsewhere! Hmmmmmmm, I don't suppose you'd be able/willing to PM me some of the article citations you know of? Have anything with a population genetics/anthropology angle?

 

[Carlanga]

I looked up that disease in brief, and, wow, the incidence in PR is insanely high compared to elsewhere! Hmmmmmmm, I don't suppose you'd be able/willing to PM me some of the article citations you know of? Have anything with a population genetics/anthropology angle?

I will try to find the references I used in the weekend, it was around early 2007, so it's been a while and I had a PC at that time... I know I have it in a backup drive somewhere though. There isn't much of anything in the pure anthropology angle which is why I decided to do it myself since I also did a Biology major and various scientific research and papers at that time… I wanted to try to add that anthro angle since different areas of PR have a more dominant mutation (3 main regions, separate geographically and each w a different mutation expression). There is a doctor here that solely studies HPS, but she does it in a biological/genetical sense. The issue w/ many parts of this subject is that many things are in spanish also. There are many papers about HPS and PR in pubmed for example (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=hermansky+puerto+rico).

 

[mobilehaathi]

I will try to find the references I used in the weekend, it was around early 2007, so it's been a while and I had a PC at that time... I know I have it in a backup drive somewhere though. There isn't much of anything in the pure anthropology angle which is why I decided to do it myself since I also did a Biology major and various scientific research and papers at that time… I wanted to try to add that anthro angle since different areas of PR have a more dominant mutation (3 main regions, separate geographically and each w a different mutation expression). There is a doctor here that solely studies HPS, but she does it in a biological/genetical sense. The issue w/ many parts of this subject is that many things are in spanish also. There are many papers about HPS and PR in pubmed for example (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=hermansky+puerto+rico).

Yeah, I'll look some stuff up myself, don't worry too much about finding it.

 

[Carlanga]

Please don't get me wrong, we have two separate topics here. One is the whiny "uni screwed me over" bit which was addressed and the second was the topic of his/her thesis. My undergrad was in CS, and I am more than willing to help, but I am not simply going to toss information out. Instead, I want to help the OP by getting him/her to turn on their brain and work for it. It is easy to turn to the internet for help and information, but as I said in my second post we need to have a much better refined thesis statement to work with anyway. The topic is too broad which will make any information gleaned from this thread pointless. Also, we can't provide scholastic level research for him/her, just opinions.

I asked questions and the OP never answered. My guess is that he/she would rather be spoon fed.

I agree with you 100%, don't get me wrong either Which is why I believe he won't return here and is prob. asking for 'help' in other similar forums. He clearly sent a 'thesis' with no sources based on what he managed to explain; so it makes sense they made him re-write it.

I felt he was hit too hard, too fast, and a little harsh for my taste with reality for it to be sinked in and properly analyzed, which is why I commented.

 

[roadbloc]

I don't mean to sound callous, but it doesn't bode well that you're coming to a forum on the internet for help with your dissertation. Do you have a committee with whom you can confer?

The red flag for me was "the uni screwed me over." As a former student and former staff member, this is often code for, "I screwed up and the uni didn't give me the second chance I was hoping for."

The truth.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I agree with you 100%, don't get me wrong either Which is why I believe he won't return here and is prob. asking for 'help' in other similar forums. He clearly sent a 'thesis' with no sources based on what he managed to explain; so it makes sense they made him re-write it.

I felt he was hit too hard, too fast, and a little harsh for my taste with reality for it to be sinked in and properly analyzed, which is why I commented.

As a former university teacher, I have absolutely no problem with students asking for help; in my teaching days, I actively encouraged it, as how else will they learn?

However, when a request for help is couched in a the which demands it as a right, and addresses legitimate questions asked by others in a dismissive manner, I do response somewhat testily.

Re the essay/dissertation in question: The student also needs to think a bit about what he would like to ask - others can guide him and offer sign-posts, but he really needs to accept ownership for the essay and the questions it seeks to address when written. In any case, I don't get the sense he is willing to do that, but rather, instead, I get the sense that he is seeking an easy way out by hoping others will do much of the work for him.