Masoud Banbersta

Graduate Student

I was born in 1981 (Iran, Tehran). I graduated in Mathematics and Physics (Pre-University level). I am currently studying Integrated Communication Management (ICM) at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences (HU). 

A research program called JUMP program, was my first experience with the Crossmedialab. This was a great opportunity to enhance my research skills. This time, I joined the Crossmedialab to find out about the success factors of social network sites. This project will also be my final dissertation to graduate.
Social network sites are the facilitators of social networks. They provide a platform and create opportunities for interaction among the members of social networks. For example, Facebook is a social network site that facilitates its users to form networks and interact with each other.

Around three years ago, almost nobody was aware of the existence of a social network site called Twitter. Twitter is a social network site and a micro blogging service that enables its users to post short messages called Tweets, which consist of 140 characters. Suddenly this micro blogger has created an unprecedented success. Everybody wants to be on Twitter even if he/she is not going to use it so often. It is a must have account on the Internet. There are several interesting questions to be asked about how Twitter could reach this success. How could Twitter develop itself as one of the most used social network site in a short period of time? What is the reason behind this explosion? Or in Facebook’s case as another example, how could Facebook reach more than 250 million accounts? 

There are a number of examples of digital services emerged rapidly and disappeared again. Friendster is one of the examples of the mentioned ‘rise and fall’. So there must be some factors and triggers, which influence the emergence and life cycle of a social media. That is the reason behind my curiosity of knowing all those factors that influence the life cycle of social network sites.

I hope that the end result will be a surprising discovery. Feel free to contact me about this issue.