A PROJECT REPORT ON “Consumer Preference Towards Social Networking Apps

A
PROJECT REPORT
ON
“Consumer Preference Towards
Social Networking Apps in Bareilly”
Submitted For the Partial Fulfillment of the Degree OF Bachelor of
Business Administration
TO
INVERTIS UNIVERSITY, BAREILLY (UP)
Submitted to: Submitted by:
Ms. Shalini Anand Vibhor Agarwal
Assistant professor BBA 5TH B
Roll no. 1310101156

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Certificate
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
This is to certify that Mr. Vibhor Agarwal student of BBA-V Sem. in our institute has
successfully completed his project work entitled “CONSUMER PREFERENCE
TOWARDS SOCIAL NETWORKING APPS IN BAREILLY” for the partial fulfillment
of the degree of Bachelor of Business Administration for the session 2014-15.
Dr. Rachna Saxena Ms. Shalini Anand
(HOD, BBA &BCOM Programme ) Assistant Professor
(Project Guide)

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I am neither a research expert nor a trend spotter. I am a management student with
foundations of management principles and theories, who is curious about various sectors and
its latest happenings.
I am highly obliged to Mr. Shalini Anand for her invaluable support; guidance and
knowledge that he shared with me thereby aiding me in making this project a successful
research.
Definitely, I can’t ignore the technology, with internet as the backbone and those search
engines which helped me in building up this research project.
Lastly, I would like to thank the ALMIGHTY and my parents for their moral and financial
support and my colleagues with whom I shared my day-to-day experience and received lots
off suggestions that improved my work quality.
Vibhor Agarwal
BBA 5TH SEM

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PREFACE
As an essential and obligatory part of my course i undertook a research project on
“ Consumer preference towards social networking apps in bareilly”
The research has helped me to get a practical knowledge about to ananlyse environment
stimulus, changes, and current requirements as an important suffix to the theortical
knowledge into the business environment.
One cannot merely depend on the theortical knowledge,classroom lectures make the
fundamental concepts but the research facilities the help in learning of the practical situation.
It is in the sense that the research has significant role to play in the subject of business
management. To develop healthy managerial and administrative skills in potenial knowledge
of real environment.
Vibhor Agarwal
BBA 5TH SEM

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
S.No. CONTENT PG No.
1. OBJECTIVES 6
2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 7-8
3. INTRODUCTION 9-14
4. HISTORY 15-30
5. REVIEW OF LITERATURE 31-33
5. DATA INTERPRETATION AND ANALYSIS 34-44
6. FINDINGS 45
7. SUGGESTIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS 46
8. CONCLUSION 47
9. LIMITATIONS 48
10. BIBLIOGRAPHY 49
11. QUESTIONNAIRE 50-51

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OBJECTIVES
1. To study the increased usage of social networking apps.
2. The effects of social networking apps on users.
3. Preference of apps among users.

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Definition of Research
Research is a process in which the researcher wishes to find out the end result for a given
problem and thus the solution helps in future course of action.
The research has been defined as “A careful investigation or enquiry especially through
search for new fact in any branch of knowledge”.
ResearchMethodology
The procedure using, which researchers go about their work of describing, explaining and
predicting phenomena, is called Methodology. Methods compromise the procedures used for
generating, collecting, and evaluating data. Methods are the ways of obtaining information
useful for assessing explanation.
ResearchDesign
Research design is the specification of the method and procedure for acquiring the
information needed to solve the problem.
Degree ofResearchQuestion
Exploratory study is done for the study of consumer buying behavior.
ResearchInstrument
Questionnaire is the research instrument used here.

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METHOD OF DATACOLLECTION
The data has been collected in two ways.
1. PRIMARYDATA
Primary data are those, which are collected for the first time, and they are original in
character. A suitable combination of Questionnaire techniques, &discussion with the
respondents was used to collect the required primary data. Primary data gives higher accuracy
and facts, which is very helpful for any research and its findings.The researcher has collected
primary data from questionnaire (i.e.) personal interview.
2. SECONDARYDATA
The secondary data are those, which are already collected by someone for some purpose and
are available for the present study. Secondary data was collected from the magazines,
websites, and other such sources.
SAMPLING PLAN
Sample Size : 70
Sampling Unit : Customers
Sample Procedure : Simple Random Sampling
Sampling Method : Questionnaire
Type of Data : Primary
Survey Area : Bareilly

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INTRODUCTION
Social Networking Apps is social networking where individuals with similar interests
converse and connect with one another through their mobile phone or tablet. Much like web-
based social networking, mobile social networking occurs in virtual Communities.
A current trend for social networking websites, such as Facebook is to create mobile apps to
give their users instant and real-time access from their device. In turn, native social
networking apps have been created like Whatsapp, Instagram etc and communities which are
built around mobile functionality.
More and more, the line between mobile and web is being blurred as mobile apps use existing
social networks to create native communities and promote discovery, and web-based social
networks take advantage of mobile features and accessibility.

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Introduction
Social media are computer-mediated tools that allow people to create, share or exchange
information, career interests, ideas, and pictures/videos in virtual communities and networks.
Social media is defined as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the
ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and
exchange of user-generated content.
“Furthermore, social media depends on mobile and web-based technologies to create highly
interactive platforms through which individuals and communities share, co-create, discuss,
and modify user-generated content. They introduce substantial and pervasive changes to
communication between businesses, organizations, communities, and individuals. These
changes are the focus of the emerging field of techno self studies. Social media differ from
traditional or industrial media in many ways, including quality, reach, frequency, usability,
immediacy and permanence. Social media operates in a dialogic transmission system, (many
sources to many receivers). This is in contrast to traditional media that operates under a
monologist transmission model (one source to many receivers).
Social media has been broadly defined to refer to the many relatively inexpensive and
widely accessible electronic tools that enable anyone to publish and access information,
collaborate on a common effort, or build relationship.

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WHAT IS MOBILE APPLICATION?
Mobile applications (apps) have been gaining rising popularity due to the advances in mobile
technologies and the large increase in the number of mobile users. Consequently, several app
distribution platforms, which provide a new way for developing, downloading, and updating
software applications in modern mobile devices, have recently emerged.
A mobile application is a software application designed to run on Smartphone, tablet
computers and other mobile devices. They are usually available through application
distribution platforms, which are typically operated by the owner of the mobile operating
system, such as the Apple App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone Store, and BlackBerry
App World.
Some apps are free, while others must be bought by usually, they are downloaded from the
platform to a target device, such as an iPhone, BlackBerry, Android phone or Windows
Phone

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Different Social Networking Apps
1. WhatsApp:
WhatsApp Messenger is a proprietary cross-platform instant
messaging client for Smartphone that operates under a subscription business
model. It uses the Internet to send text messages, images, video, user
location and audio media messages to other users using
standard cellular mobile numbers.
As of September 2015, WhatsApp had a user base of up to 900 million, making it the most
globally popular messaging application.
WhatsApp Inc., based in Mountain View, California, was acquired by Facebook Inc. on
February 19, 2014, for approximately US$16 billion.
2. Facebook:
Facebook Messenger is an instant messaging service and software application
which provides text and voice communication. Integrated with Facebook’s
web-based Chat feature and built on the open MQTT protocol, Messenger lets
Facebook users chat with friends both on mobile and on the main website.
Facebook reported in March 2015 that Facebook Messenger has reached 600
million users. David A. Marcusheads Facebook Messenger and had joined Facebook on
invitation of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook.
3. Twitter:
Twitter is an online social networking and micro-blogging service that
enables users to send and read "tweets", which are text messages limited to
140 characters. Registered users can read and post tweets but unregistered
users can only read them. Users access Twitter through the website interface,
SMS, or mobile device app. Twitter Inc. is based in San Francisco and has offices in
New York City, Boston, and San Antonio.
:

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4. Skype:
Skype is an application that specializes in providing video chat and voice
calls. Users can also exchange text and video messages, files and images, as
well as create conference calls. Skype is available on Microsoft
Windows, Mac, or Linux, as well as Android, Blackberry, IOS, and Windows
Phone Smartphone and Tablets.
5. LinkedIn:
LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking service. Founded in
December 2002 and launched on May 5, 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking.
As of 2015, most of the site's revenue comes from selling access to information about its
users to recruiters.
In 2006, LinkedIn increased to 20 million members. As of October 2015, LinkedIn reports
more than 400 million acquired users in more than 200 countries and territories.
6. Instagram:
Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing and social
networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, and share them on a
variety of social networking platforms.
Instagram was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and launched in October 2010
as a free mobile app.

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7. Google Plus:
Google+ (pronounced and sometimes written as Google Plus) is an interest-
based social network that is owned and operated by Google Inc.
The service, Google's fourth foray into social networking, experienced strong growth in its
initial years, although usage statistics have varied, depending on how the service is defined.
Three Google executives have overseen the product, which has undergone substantial
changes leading to a redesign in November 2015.
8. Hike Messenger:
Hike Messenger (stylized as hike messenger) is a cross-platform instant
messaging service for Smartphone that uses the internet for communication. In addition to
text messaging, users can send each other graphical stickers, emoticons, images, videos,
audios, files, voice messages, contacts and user location.
Hike was launched on 12 December 2012 and raised its first round of funding of $7 million
from Bharti SoftBank in April 2013. Hike is a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises
and Softbank.

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HISTORY
The evolution of social networking on mobile networks started in 1999 with basic chatting and
texting services. With the introduction of various technologies in mobile networks, social
networking has reached to an advance level over four generations.
First Generation
First generation began in 1999 or early 2000. Technologies used in this generation are
application based, pre-installed on mobile handsets. Features such as text only chat via chat
rooms. People involved who used these services are anonymous. The services of this
generation mobile social networks can be used by pay as you go or subscription to service.
SecondGeneration
Second generation began in 2004 through 2006. Introduction of 3G and camera phones added
many features such as uploading photos, mobile search for person based on profile, contact /
flirt with person anonymously etc. Regional distributions of these features include Japan,
Korea, Australia, Western Europe and US. The applications are mostly useful for dating
purpose. The services of this generation mobile social networks can be used by pay as you go
or subscription to service.
Third Generation
The experiments for this generation mobile social networks started in 2006. It was adopted
widely in 2008/2009. This generation brought tremendous changes and made mobile social
networks as a part of daily life. The features include richer user experience, automatic
publishing to web profile and status updates, some web 2.0 features, search by group / join by
interests, alerts, location based services content sharing especially music etc. Technologies
for WAP 2.0, Java on the server, MMS, voice capture etc. Applications introduced were
customized with general interests such as music, mobile specific content distribution.
Regional distributions of this generation of mobile social networks include Japan, Korea,
Western Europe, and North America. Advertising and ad supported content become
increasingly important. The services in this generation can be used by plans such as pay as
you go; subscription based still popular networks gain scale to become content distribution
platform.

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Fourth Generation
Fourth generation began in 2008 and reached in 2010.All the features in third generation are
advanced in this generation of social mobile networks. The features of this generation include
the features of third generation, ability to hide/ mask presence, asynchronous video
conversation, multi point audio chat conversation with one button, multiplayer mobile
gaming etc. Technologies which made these features possible are web 2.0 widgets, Flash lite,
open social, open handset alliance. The business model of previous generation continued
along with virtual currency –purchase and trade of virtual goods.

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History of different Social Networking Apps
1. WhatsApp
History
WhatsApp Inc. was founded in 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum, both former employees
of Yahoo! After Koum and Acton left Yahoo! in September 2007, the duo travelled to South
America as a break from work. At one point they applied for a job at Facebook but were
rejected. For the rest of the following years Koum relied on his $400,000 savings from
Yahoo!. In January 2009, after purchasing an iPhone and realizing that the seven-month-
old App Store was about to spawn a whole new industry of apps, he started visiting his
friend, Alex Fishman in West San Jose where the three would discuss "...having statuses next
to individual names of the people," but this was not possible without an iPhone developer, so
Fishman introduced Koum to Igor Solomennikov, a developer in Russia that he had found on
RentACoder.com. Koum almost immediately chose the name "WhatsApp" because it
sounded like "what's up", and a week later on his birthday, on February 24, 2009, he
incorporated WhatsApp Inc. in California. However, early WhatsApp kept crashing or getting
stuck and at a particular point, Koum felt like giving up and looking for a new job, upon
which Acton encouraged him to wait for a "few more months".
In June 2009, Apple launched push notifications, letting developers ping users when they
were not using an app. Koum updated WhatsApp so that each time the user changed their
statuses, it would ping everyone in the user's network. WhatsApp 2.0 was released with a
messaging component and the active users suddenly swelled to 250,000. Koum visited Acton,
who was still unemployed while managing another unsuccessful startup and decided to join
the company. In October Acton persuaded five ex-Yahoo! friends to invest $250,000 in seed
funding, and as a result was granted co-founder status and a stake. He officially joined on
November 1.After months at beta stage, the application eventually launched in November
2009 exclusively on the App Store for the iPhone. Koum then hired an old friend who lived
in Los Angeles, Chris Peiffer, to make the BlackBerry version, which arrived two months
later.

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WhatsApp was switched from a free to paid service to avoid growing too fast, mainly
because the primary cost was sending verification texts to users. In December 2009
WhatsApp for the iPhone was updated to send photos. By early 2011, WhatsApp was in the
top 20 of all apps in Apple's U.S. App Store.
In April 2011, the founders agreed to take $7 million from Sequoia Capital on top of their
$250,000 seed funding, after months of negotiation with Sequoia partner Jim Goetz
.According to Goetz, the venture capital firm originally discovered WhatsApp through an
App store tracking system they developed called 'early bird', at a time when the app was
much more popular in other countries than in the US. However, it took months for the VC
firm to track down Koum and Acton, given that the company didn't have a publicly available
address nor signage at the time. All Goetz knew was that they were located in Mountain
View, and Sequoia partners "literally walked the streets of Mountain View to see if [they]
could intersect with [Koum and Acton]."
By February 2013, WhatsApp's user base had swollen to about 200 million active users and
its staff to 50. Sequoia invested another $50 million, valuing WhatsApp at $1.5 billion.
In a December 2013 blog post, WhatsApp claimed that 400 million active users use the
service each month. As of April 22, 2014, WhatsApp had over 500 million monthly active
users, 700 million photos and 100 million videos are shared each day, and the messaging
system handles more than 10 billion messages each day.On August 24, 2014, Koum
announced on his Twitter account that WhatsApp had over 600 million active users
worldwide. WhatsApp added about 25 million new users every month or 833,000 active users
per day. With 65 million active users, about 10% of the total worldwide users, India is the
largest single country in terms of number of users.
In January 2015, WhatsApp was the most globally popular messaging app with more than
600 million active users. In April 2015, WhatsApp reached 800 million active users .By
September 2015; the user base had grown up to 900 million.

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2. Facebook
History
Facemash, the Facebook’s predecessor, opened on October 28, 2003 Initially, the website
was invented by a Harvard student, Mark Zuckerberg, and three of his classmates – Andrew
McCollum, Chris Hughes and Dustin Moskovitz. Zuckerberg wrote the software for the
Facemash website when he was in his second year of college. The website was set up as a
type of “hot or not” game for Harvard students. The website allowed visitors to compare two
student pictures side-by-side and let them choose who was “hot” and who was “not”.....
According to The Harvard Crimson, Facemash "used photos compiled from the online
facebooks of nine Houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose
the 'hotter' person". To accomplish this, Mark Zuckerberg hacked the "facebooks" Harvard
maintained to help students identify each other and used the images to populate his Facemash
website. That the initial site mirrored people’s physical community with their real identities
represented the key aspects of what later became Facebook.
"Perhaps Harvard will squelch it for legal reasons without realizing its value as a venture that
could possibly be expanded to other schools (maybe even ones with good-looking people...),"
Zuckerberg wrote in his personal blog. "But one thing is certain, and it’s that I’m a jerk for
making this site. Oh well. Someone had to do it eventually... The site was quickly forwarded
to several campus group list-servers. However, the website was shut down by Harvard
executives a few days after it opened. Mark Zuckerberg faced charges of violating
copyrights, breach of security, and violating individual privacy for stealing the student
pictures that he used to populate the website. He later faced expulsion from Harvard
University for his actions. However, all the charges were eventually dropped.
Zuckerberg expanded on this initial project that semester by creating a social study tool ahead
of an art history final. He uploaded 500 Augustan images to a website, with one image per
page along with a comment section. He opened the site up to his classmates and people
started sharing their notes. "The professor said it had the best grades of any final he’d ever
given. This was my first social hack. With Facebook, I wanted to make something that would
make Harvard more open," Zuckerberg said in a TechCrunch Interview.
On October 25, 2010, entrepreneur and banker Rahul Jain auctioned off FaceMash.com to an
unknown buyer for $30,201

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On October 1, 2005, Facebook expanded to twenty-one universities in the United Kingdom
and others around the world. Facebook launched a high school version in September 2005,
which Zuckerberg called the next logical step.At that time, high school networks required an
invitation to join. Facebook later expanded membership eligibility to employees of several
companies, including Apple Inc. and Microsoft. On December 11, 2005, universities in
Australia and New Zealand were added to the Facebook network, bringing its size to 2,000+
colleges and 25,000 + high schools throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United
Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland. Facebook was then opened on September 26,
2006 to everyone aged 13 and older with a valid e-mail address.
Late in 2007, Facebook had 100,000 business pages, allowing companies to attract potential
customers and tell about themselves. These started as group pages, but a new concept called
company pages was planned.
In October 2008, Facebook announced that it would set up its international headquarters
in Dublin, Ireland.
In 2010, Facebook began to invite users to become beta testers after passing a question-and-
answer-based selection process, and a set of Facebook Engineering Puzzles where users
would solve computational problems which gave them an opportunity to be hired by
Facebook.
As of February 2011, Facebook had become the largest online photo host, being cited by
Facebook application and online photo aggregator Pixable as expecting to have 100 billion
photos by summer 2011.As of October 2011, over 350 million users accessed Facebook
through their mobile phones, accounting for 33% of all Facebook traffic.
On March 12, 2012, Yahoo! filed suit in a U.S. federal court against Facebook weeks before
the scheduled Facebook initial public offering. In its court filing, Yahoo said that Facebook
had infringed on ten of its patents covering advertising, privacy controls and social
networking. Yahoo had threatened to sue Facebook a month before the filing, insisting that
the social network license its patents. A spokesperson for Facebook issued a statement saying
"We're disappointed that Yahoo, a longtime business partner of Facebook and a company that
has substantially benefited from its association with Facebook, has decided to resort to
litigation". The lawsuit claims that Yahoo's patents cover basic social networking ideas such
as customizing website users' experiences to their needs, adding that the patents cover ways
of targeting ads to individual users.
In 2012, Facebook App Center, an online mobile store, was rolled out. The store initially had
500 Facebook apps which were mostly games
On April 24, 2014, Facebook and Storyful announced a new feature called FB Newswire.

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3. Instagram
History
Instagram began development in San Francisco, United States, when Systrom and Brazilian
Krieger chose to focus their multi-featured HTML5check-in project, Burbn, on mobile
photography. The name "Instagram" is a portmanteau of "instant camera" and "telegram".
In January 2011, Instagram added hashtags to help users discover both photographs and each
other. Instagram encourages users to make tags both specific and relevant, rather than tagging
generic words like "photo", to make photographs stand out and to attract like-minded
Instagram users. In September, version 2.0 went live in the App Store (iOS) and included
new and live filters, instant tilt–shift, high resolution photographs, optional borders, one click
rotation, and an updated icon.
On April 3, 2012, Instagram was released for Android phones running the 2.2 Froyo version
of the OS, and it was downloaded more than one million times in less than one day. That
same week, Instagram raised US$50 million from venture capitalists for a share of the
company; the process valued Instagram at US$500 million. Over the next three months,
Instagram was rated more than one million times on Google Play and was the fifth app to
ever reach one million ratings on Google Play—as of April 2013; it had been rated nearly
four million times.
Facebook made an offer to purchase Instagram, along with its 13 employees, for
approximately US$1 billion in cash and stock in April 2012, with a plan to keep the company
independently managed. Britain's Office of Fair Trading approved the deal on August 14,
2012, and on August 22, 2012, the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. closed its
investigation, allowing the deal to proceed. On September 6, 2012, the deal between
Instagram and Facebook was officially closed.
On April 12, 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram for approximately US$1 billion in cash and
stock. The deal, which was made just prior to Facebook's scheduled IPO, cost about a quarter
of Facebook's cash-on-hand, according to figures documented at the end of 2011. The deal
was for a company characterized as having "lots of buzz but no business model", and the
price was contrasted with the US$35 million Yahoo! paid for Flickr in 2005, a website that
has since become among the 50 most popular in the world.

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Mark Zuckerberg noted that Facebook was "committed to building and growing Instagram
independently", in contrast to its past practice. According to multiple reports, the deal netted
Systrom US$400 million based on his ownership stake in the business. The exact purchase
price was US$300 million in cash and 23 million shares of stock.
On December 17, 2012, Instagram updated its Terms of Service, granting itself the right—
starting on January 16, 2013—to sell users' photos to third parties without notification or
compensation. The criticism from privacy advocates, consumers, the National Geographic
Society, and celebrities like Kim Kardashian prompted Instagram to issue a statement
retracting the controversial terms; regardless, the issue resulted in the loss of a portion of
Instagram's user-base, as former users switched to other photo-sharing services, which
reported an increase in usage.
On March 11, 2014, Instagram released an updated Android app with performance
improvements and a flatter interface. The update was primarily intended to reduce the app's
file size and resource usage, and it was optimized for and tested on low-end smartphones sold
in emerging markets, such as the Samsung Galaxy Y, which was popular in Brazil the time.
The company's Global Head of Business and Brand Development—a new position for
Instagram—was announced in mid-August 2014. Facebook's former Regional Director James
Quarles was assigned the role, which manages Instagram’s revenue strategy, in addition to
both the marketing and sales teams. Quarles will report directly to Systrom during a tenure in
which he will develop new “monetization products”, as explained by a company
representative to the media.
Since the app's launch it had used the Foursquare API to provide named location tagging. In
early 2014, after being purchased by Facebook, the company was switched to using Facebook
Places.
On October 22, 2015, Instagram launched Boomerang, an app where you shoot a one-second
burst of five photos that are turned into a silent video that plays forwards and then reverses in
a loop.

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4. Google +
History
Creation
Google+ is the company's fourth foray into social networking, following Google
Buzz (launched 2010, retired in 2011), Google Friend Connect(launched 2008, retired by
March 1, 2012), and Orkut (launched in 2004, as of 2013 operated entirely by subsidiary
Google Brazil – retired in September 2014).
Google+ launched in June 2011. Features included the ability to post photos and status
updates to the stream or interest based communities, group different types of relationships
(rather than simply "friends") into Circles, a multi-person instant messaging, text and video
chat called Hangouts, events, location tagging, and the ability to edit and upload photos to
private cloud-based albums.

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5. Twitter
History
Creationand initial reaction
Twitter's origins lie in a "daylong brainstorming session" held by board members of
the podcasting company Odeo. Jack Dorsey, then an undergraduate student at New York
University, introduced the idea of an individual using an SMS service to communicate with a
small group. The original project code name for the service was twttr, an idea that Williams
later ascribed to Noah Glass inspired by Flickr and the five-character length of American
SMS short codes. The decision was also partly due to the fact that domain twitter.com was
already in use, and it was six months after the launch of twttr that the crew purchased the
domain and changed the name of the service to Twitter. The developers initially considered
"10958" as a short code, but later changed it to "40404" for "ease of use and memorability".
Work on the project started on March 21, 2006, when Dorsey published the first Twitter
message at 9:50 PM Pacific Standard Time (PST): "just setting up my twttr". Dorsey has
explained the origin of the "Twitter" title:
...we came across the word 'twitter', and it was just perfect. The definition was 'a short burst
of inconsequential information,' and 'chirps from birds'. And that's exactly what the product
was.
The first Twitter prototype, developed by Dorsey and contractor Florian Weber, was used as
an internal service for Odeo employees and the full version was introduced publicly on July
15, 2006.
In October 2006, Biz Stone, Evan Williams, Dorsey, and other members of Odeo, formed
Obvious Corporation and acquired Odeo, together with its assets—including Odeo.com and
Twitter.com—from the investors and shareholders. Williams fired Glass, who was silent
about his part in Twitter's startup until 2011.Twitter spun off into its own company in April
2007. Williams provided insight into the ambiguity that defined this early period in a 2013
interview:
With Twitter, it wasn't clear what it was. They called it a social network, they called it
microblogging, but it was hard to define, because it didn't replace anything. There was this
path of discovery with something like that, where over time you figure out what it is. Twitter
actually changed from what we thought it was in the beginning, which we described as status
updates and a social utility. It is that, in part, but the insight we eventually came to was
Twitter was really more of an information network than it is a social network.
The tipping point for Twitter's popularity was the 2007 South by Southwest
Interactive (SXSWi) conference. During the event, Twitter usage increased from

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20,000 tweets per day to 60,000. "The Twitter people cleverly placed two 60-inch plasma
screens in the conference hallways, exclusively streaming Twitter messages,"
remarked Newsweek's Steven Levy. "Hundreds of conference-goers kept tabs on each other
via constant twitters. Panelists and speakers mentioned the service, and the bloggers in
attendance touted it."
Reaction at the conference was highly positive. Blogger Scott Beale said that Twitter was
"absolutely ruling" SXSWi. Social software researcher danah boyd said Twitter was
"owning" the conference. Twitter staff received the festival's Web Award prize with the
remark "we'd like to thank you in 140 characters or less. And we just did!"
The first unassisted off-Earth Twitter message was posted from the International Space
Station by NASA astronaut T. J. Creamer on January 22, 2010. By late November 2010,
averages of a dozen updates per day were posted on the astronauts' communal account,
@NASA Astronauts. NASA has also hosted over 25 "tweetups", events that provide guests
with VIP access to NASA facilities and speakers with the goal of leveraging participants'
social networks to further the outreach goals of NASA.
In August 2010, the company appointed Adam Bain from News Corp's Fox Audience
Network as president of revenue.

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6. Skype
History
Skype was founded in 2003 by Niklas Zennström, from Sweden, and Janus Friis, from
Denmark. The Skype software was created by Estonians Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu, and Jaan
Tallinn the first public beta version was released on 29 August 2003.
In June 2005, Skype entered into an agreement with the Polish web portal Onet.pl. On 12
September 2005, eBay Inc. agreed to acquire Luxembourg-based Skype Technologies SA for
approximately US$2.5 billion in up-front cash and eBay stock, plus potential performance-
based consideration.
On 1 September 2009, it was announced that eBay was selling 65% of Skype to Silver Lake,
Andreessen Horowitz, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for US$1.9 billion,
valuing Skype at US$2.75 billion.
Microsoft acquisition
On 10 May 2011, Microsoft Corporation acquired Skype Communication, for US$8.5
billion. The company was incorporated as a division of Microsoft, and Microsoft acquired all
of the company's technologies with the purchase. This was completed on 13 October 2011.
Shortly after its acquisition, Microsoft began integrating the Skype service with its own
products:
 Along with taking over development of existing Skype desktop programs and mobile
apps, the company developed a dedicated client app, called Skype for Modern Windows,
for its newly released, touch-focused Windows 8 and Windows RT operating systems.
This app became downloadable from the Windows Store when the new OS launched on
October 26, 2012. The following year, Skype for Modern Windows became the default
messaging app for Windows 8.1, replacing the Windows 8 Messaging app at the time,
and became pre-installed software on every device that came with or upgraded to 8.1.
 When the company introduced Office 2013 on February 27, 2013, it was announced that
60 Skype world minutes per month would be included in Office 365consumer plans
(Home and Personal, and University).
 In a month-long transition period from April 8 to 30, 2013, it phased out its long-
standing Windows Live Messenger instant messaging service in favour of Skype,
although Messenger continued in mainland China.

27
7. Hike
History
Launched on 12 December 2012, Hike attained 15 million users in February 2014 and raised
$14 million for its development. Over the next few months, the application introduced free
text messaging anywhere in India, chat themes, updated stickers, hidden chats and revamped
user interface. In August 2014, Hike hit 35 million users and raised another big round of
funding - $65 million - led by Tiger Global.
Hike Messenger made its first acquisition, buying free voice-calling company Zip Phones,
which allowed it to launch free app based calling services that are emerging as a key draw for
users
In 2015, Hike launched the "Great Indian Sticker Challenge" to invite designers to design
new stickers. As per the communication statistics on Hike, 30% of the traffic comes from
stickers.
On Oct 2015, the CEO of hike announced that the userbase of hike reached up to 70 million
and more than 20 billion messages are shared each month.
Feature
Apart from basic social messaging means like photos, videos and audio files, Hike allows
users to "nudge", a feature used to ping the receiver. In addition to that, the application
supports chat themes, graphical stickers, PDF files and Office Files. It also allows users to
hide individual and group chats providing extended privacy. The messenger now provides
free voice-calling over 2G, 3G and Wi-Fi across the globe in over 200 countries.
In January 2015, hike introduced a voice calling feature for their users.
During the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015, Hike partnered with CricBuzz to keep their
Android users updated about the world cup scores.
In Sep 2015, hike launched free group calls with up to 100 people in a conference call.
Hike Direct, a feature that allow users to share messages and files without any kind of data
charges within a radius of 100 metres through Wi-Fi Direct, was made available on Oct 2015

28
Privacy
Hike uses a 128-bit SSL encrypted, firewalled server for the exchange of media and text
messages only on wifi. Messages are stored locally in the user's device and the data is not
backed-up to Hike's server. Hike is also accused of spamming contacts of the Hike users by
sending unsolicited SMSes purporting to be from the Hike user to the non-users in their
contacts, thereby validating the fact that they back-up the contact numbers without explicit
permission from the non-users.

29
8. LinkedIn
History
Founding to 2010
The company was founded by Reid Hoffman and founding team members from PayPal and
Socialnet.com (Allen Blue, Eric Ly, Jean-Luc Vaillant, Lee Hower, Konstantin Guericke,
Stephen Beitzel, David Eves, Ian McNish, Yan Pujante). In late 2003, Sequoia Capital led the
Series A investment in the company. In June 2008, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, and
other venture capital firms purchased a 5% stake in the company for $53 million, giving the
company a post-money valuation of approximately $1 billion.
In 2010, LinkedIn opened an International Headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, received a $20
million investment from Tiger Global Management LLC at a valuation of approximately
$2 billion,[and announced its first acquisition, Mspoke, and improved its 1% premium
subscription ratio. In October of that year Silicon Valley Insider ranked the company No. 10
on its Top 100 List of most valuable start ups. By December, the company was valued at
$1.575 billion in private markets.
2011 to present
LinkedIn filed for an initial public offering in January 2011. The company traded its first
shares on May 19, 2011, under the NYSE symbol "LNKD", at $45 per share. Shares of
LinkedIn rose as much as 171 percent in their first day of trade on the New York Stock
Exchange and closed at $94.25, more than 109 percent above IPO price. Shortly after the
IPO, the site's underlying infrastructure was revised to allow accelerated revision-release
cycles.
In 2011, LinkedIn earned $154.6 million in advertising revenue alone, surpassing Twitter,
which earned $139.5 million. LinkedIn’s fourth-quarter 2011 earnings soared due to the
company's increase in success in the social media world.
In spring 2012, LinkedIn leased 57,120 square feet on three floors of the One Montgomery
Tower building in the Financial District of San Francisco, which was expanded to 135,000
square feet by 2014.In May 2012, LinkedIn announced its 2012 Q1 revenues were up to
$188.5 million compared to $93.9 million in Q1 2011. Net income increased 140% over Q1
2011 to $5 million. Revenue for Q2 was estimated to be between $210 to $215 million.

30
In November 2012, LinkedIn released their third quarter earnings, reporting earnings-per-
share of $0.22 on revenue of $252 million. As a result of these numbers, LinkedIn's stock
increased in value, trading at roughly $112 a share.
In April 2014 it was announced that LinkedIn had leased 222 Second Street, a 26-story
building under construction in San Francisco's SoMa district, to accommodate up to 2,500 of
its employees.

31
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Facebook and WhatsApp top social networking
apps in India: Report
 Facebook remains the most popular social networking site in India with 51% of users
logging on daily, while WhatsApp tops the list of instant messaging (IM) apps,
according to report by global research consultancy firm TNS.
 As per the findings of ‘Connected Life’ -- a global study of the digital attitudes and
behaviors of 60,500 internet users across 50 countries, 55% are on instant messaging
every day.
 In India, Facebook continues its dominance for social networking platforms with 51%
of the users while WhatsApp is the most popular for instant messaging app with 56%
of users, TNS said in a statement.
 Commenting on the findings, TNS India Executive Director Parijat Chakraborty said:
“The social networking market of India is Facebook centric, which is fuelling the
adoption of Facebook Messenger also as the IM platform for private messaging.
However, WhatsApp is by far the most popular IM platform in India.”
 As per the study, Facebook has maintained its position as the world’s favourite social
platform with almost one third of global internet users (30%) saying they use it every
day and with usage in Asia Pacific (APAC) region much higher.
 India’s Facebook usage of 51%, however, is far lower compared to some countries in
APAC markets like Thailand (78%), Taiwan (75%), Hong Kong (72%).
 Interestingly, India is the second largest base with over 125 million users for
Facebook that has 1.49 billion users globally. The US has the highest number of
Facebook users.
 On the popularity instant messaging in India, Chakraborty said the country had
always been a text heavy market. This legacy, coupled with the attraction of
connecting with like-minded people privately, is making instant messaging platforms
a perfect tool.
 “This new-found excitement of largely new mobile- internet users has made India one
of the highest globally in average daily number of messages exchanged,” Chakraborty
said.
 In APAC, over three out of five internet users or 61% are now using instant
messaging every day, while 82% are using it on a weekly basis, the report said.
Overall, “the popularity of IM has soared over the past year, with a 12% uplift in daily
usage globally as more people opt for closed messaging platforms such as WhatsApp,
Facebook Messenger and WeChat”, it added.

32
 IM has achieved high numbers of daily users across much of APAC, with 77% of
those in Malaysia, 73% in Hong Kong, 69% in China and 38% in India, using an IM
platform daily.
 By contrast, some Western markets are lagging behind, including the UK (39%) and
the US (35%), it said.
TNS said While IM popularity is rising; traditional social media platforms are still
holding strong, allowing content to go viral more quickly. The challenge for brands is
to create content that consumers actually want to share.

33
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Negative Side Effects of Social Networking Sites andApps on Teenager
Student’s Life..!!
 The popularity of the social networking sites increased rapidly in the last decade. This
is probably due to the reason that college and university students as well as teens used
it extensively to get global access.
 These social networking sites such as WhatsApp, Wechat, Twitter and Facebook have
become a raging craze for everyone nowadays.
 The negative effects of these social networking sites overweigh the positive ones.
These sites have caused some potential harm to society.
 The students become victims of social networks more often than anyone else. This is
because of the reason that when they are studying or searching their course material
online.
 They get attracted to these sites and social apps to kill the boredom in their study time
through surfing late night on their cell phones or computers which diverting their
attention from their work.
Reducedlearning and researchcapabilities:
Students have started relying more on the information accessible easily on these social
networking sites and the web. This reduces their learning and research capabilities.

34
DATA INTERPRETATION AND ANALYSIS
1. Do you have Smartphone?
A) Yes 66 94%
B) No 04 6%
Interpretation:
94% people have Smartphone.
94%
6%

35
2. Do you use social networking apps?
A) Yes 64 97%
B) No 02 3%
Interpretation:
97% people use social networking apps.
97%
3%

36
3. If yes than answer the following questions, which social networking apps do you use?
A) Face book 52
B) Whatsapp 65
C) LinkedIn 07
D) Instagram 22
E) Skype 20
F) Google + 21
G) Twitter 12
H) Other 04
Interpretation:
Mostly people use whatsapp and than facebook
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Facebook Whatsapp linkdin Instagram Skype Google + Twitter Other's
52
65
7
22
20 21
12
4
66 66 66 66 66 66 66 66
Respondent Total

37
4. What is the frequency of using the social networking apps?
A) Everyday 60 91%
B) Once a week 2 3%
C) Once a month 1 1%
D) Occasionally 3 5%
Interpretation:
91% people use social networking apps daily.
91%
3%
1%
5%

38
5. What is the time you spend on social networking apps per day?
A) Up to 2 hours 35 53%
B) 2 to 4 hours 16 24%
C) 5 to 6 hours 06 9%
D) More than 6 hours 09 14%
Interpretation:
53% of the people spend time up to two hours daily on social networking apps.
53%
24%
9%
14%

39
6. What do you use these apps for
A) Keep in touch with friends 50
B) Making new friends 15
C) Time pass 23
D) Gathering information 32
E) To share your experience 16
F) To make Professional and business contract 13
Interpretation:
Mostly people use these apps for keep in touch with friends.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
A B C D E F
50
15
23
32
16
13

40
7. How do online networking apps affect your social life?
A) Does not have an effect on face to face communication 21 32%
B) Has somewhat effect on face to face communication 32 48%
C) Replaces most face to face communication 13 20%
Interpretation:
48% people has somewhat effect on face to face communication due to social networking
apps on their social life.
32%
48%
20%

41
8. Do you think social networking apps are important?
A) Strongly agree 17 26%
B) Agree 42 64%
C) Fair 07 10%
D) Disagree 00 0
Interpretation:
64%people agree that social networking apps are important.
26%
64%
10% 0%

42
9. How do you feel about advertising on social networking apps?
A) Very annoying 11 17%
B) Somewhat annoying 16 24%
C) Indifferent 04 6%
D) Somewhat useful 22 33%
E) Very useful 13 20%
Interpretation:
33%people think that advertisement on social networking apps are somewhat useful and
24%people think that advertisement on social networking apps are somewhat annoying.
17%
24%
6%
33%
20%

43
10. Have you ever been a victim of on-line bullying (offensive comments or emails)?
A) Yes 20 30%
B) No 46 70%
Interpretation:
70%people have been victims of on-line bullying on these social networking apps.
30%
70%

44
11. Do you think privacy policies are effective in social networking apps?
A) Strongly agree 27 41%
B) Agree 35 53%
C) Disagree 04 6%
D) Strongly disagree 00 0%
Interpretation:
53%people agree that privacy policies are effective in social networking apps.
41%
53%
6%
0%

45
FINDINGS
1. From the survey I come to know that mostly people use whatsapp and then facebook.
2. 53% People spend 2 hours on these social networking apps per day.
3. 91% people use social networking apps per day.
4. According to survey 64% people agree with the importance of social networking apps
in today’s lifestyle.
5. People are agreeing with the effectiveness of privacy policies of these apps while
some are not.
6. 33% user’s feels advertisements are somewhat useful while according to 24% user’s
advertisements are somewhat annoying on these apps.
7. Most of the people use social networking apps to keep in touch with friends.

46
SUGGESTIONS& RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Privacy is seriously a concern on social media platform so the companies should put
sincere and concrete efforts in strengthening it as identity theft is a serious threat these
days and users would never want to put themselves at risk through unsafe medium of
apps.
2. Advertisements on social media should not put in a manner which creates disturbance
or unnecessary interruptions while its usage and they should be properly managed.
3. Apps should be more user friendly and free from complexity.

47
CONCLUSION
Social media fosters communication. An internet research company, Pew Research Center,
claims that “more than half of internet users (52%) use two or more of the social media sites
measured (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp) to communicate with their family or
friends
For children, using social media sites can help promote creativity, interaction, and learning. It
can also help them with homework and class work. Moreover, social media enable them to
stay connected with their peers, and help them to interact with each other.
Some can get involved with developing fundraising campaigns and political events.
However, it can impact social skills due to the absence of face-to-face contact. Social media
can affect mental health of teens. Teens that use Facebook, whatsapp, etc frequently and
especially who are susceptible may become more narcissistic, antisocial, and aggressive.
Teens become strongly influenced by advertising, and it influences buying habits for in the
future. Since the creation of Facebook in 2004, it has become a distraction and a way to waste
time for many users.

48
LIMITATIONS
1. Study was confined only to the people of Bareilly city. So, the study may not be justified
for all.
2. There is a chance of marking wrong answers or making incorrect choices in the
questionnaire as some of the respondents may have misread the questions.
3. Time boundation is also the one of the limitation.

50
QUESTIONNAIRE
I am doing a brief survey on social networking apps.
I would be grateful if you could spare few minutes to participate in the survey.
Name Age
Gender Occupation
1. Do you have Smartphone?
 Yes
 No
2. Do you use social networking apps?
 Yes
 No
3. If yes than answer the following questions, which social networking apps do you use?
 Face book Skype
 Whatsapp Google +
 LinkedIn Twitter
 Instagram Other
specify__________________
4. What is the frequency of using the social networking apps?
 Everyday
 Once a week
 Once a month
 Occasionally
5. What is the time you spend on social networking apps per day?
 Up to 2 hours
 2 to 4 hours
 5 to 6 hours
 More than 6 hours

51
6. Why do you use these apps for
 Keep in touch with friends
 Making new friends
 Time pass
 Gathering information
 To share your experience
 To make Professional and business contract
7. How do online networking apps affect your social life?
 Does not have an effect on face to face communication
 Has Somewhat effect on face to face communication
 Replaces most face to face communication
8. Do you think social networking apps are important?
 Strongly agree
 Agree
 Fair
 Disagree
9. How do you feel about advertising on social networking apps?
 Very annoying
 Somewhat annoying
 Indifferent
 Somewhat useful
 Very useful
10. Have you ever been a victim of on-line bullying (offensive comments or emails)?
 Yes
 No
11. Do you think privacy policies are effective in social networking apps?
 Strongly agree
 Agree
 Disagree
 Strongly disagree
12. Any suggestion regarding social networking apps please welcome

A PROJECT REPORT ON “Consumer Preference Towards Social Networking Apps

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A PROJECT REPORT ON “Consumer Preference Towards Social Networking Apps