Standardization of Online Social Network Services: Concepts, Network Effects and Market Impact

Abstract

During the last decade, there is observed an increasing interest for Social Network Service (SNS)like Facebook, Google+ and similar online social networking platforms. It is clearly a trend thatthe number of SNS is growing increasingly. SNS have successfully migrated into people?s livesand provide social online networking platforms with different features and design. Normally, SNSdo not share information. Interoperability across SNS is unavailable. Therefore, many of SNSusers own several accounts in order to access different services with duplicate account information.Under such circumstances, there has been a growing public fascination with the comprehensivestandardization of SNS. What happens if standardization enters the current market?SNS standard is defined as a technical standard that aims to provide a simplified and user-friendlyenvironment that diminish the limitations of interoperability across different SNS. There are manyattempts in order to realize SNS standardazation, but none of them have archive a globally success,as the drawbacks are plenty and a proper prototype is not officially recognized and deployed by anyproviders.Based on the theoretical concepts and simulation analysis, this thesis has elaborate and analyzethe effect on standardization on then SNS market, providers and competition. In order to generate amarket analysis, a DEMOS-based simulation is modeled and used based on three market scenarios.Together with the simulation results, a business model and game theoretical analysis are presentedfor measurements on strategic management.