Facebook
(stylized
facebook
) is a social network serviceand website launched in February 2004 that is operated
and privately owned by Facebook, Inc.
As of January 2011, Facebook has more than 600 million active users.
Users may create a personal profile, add other users as friends and exchange messages, including automaticnotifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common interest user groups, organized byworkplace, school, or college, or other characteristics. The name of the service stems from thecolloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by university administrations in the US with the intentionof helping students to get to know each other better. Facebook allows anyone who declares themselves to be at least13 years old to become a registered user of the website.Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerbergwith his college roommates and fellow computer science
students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin MoskovitzandChris Hughes.
The website's membership was initially limited bythe founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in theBostonarea, theIvy League,
and Stanford University.It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high
school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over.A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social network service by worldwide monthly
active users, followed by MySpace.
put it on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, saying, "Howon earth did we stalk our exes, remember our co-workers' birthdays, bug our friends, and play a rousing game of Scrabulous before Facebook?"
Quantcast estimates Facebook has 135.1 million monthly unique U.S. visitors inOctober 2010.
According to Social Media Today as of April 2010, it is estimated that 41.6% of the U.S. populationhas a Facebook account.
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History
Main articles: History of Facebook and Timeline of Facebook
Mark Zuckerbergwrote Facemash, the predecessor to Facebook, on October 28, 2003, while attending Harvard as
a sophomore.According to
, the site was comparable toHot or Not, and "used photos compiledfrom the online facebooks of nine houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the'hotter' person".
Mark Zuckerberg co-created Facebook in his Harvard dorm room.
To accomplish this, Zuckerberg hackedinto the protected areas of Harvard's computer network and copied the
houses' private dormitoryIDimages. Harvard at that time did not have a student "facebook" (a directory with photos
and basic information). Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours online.
The site was quickly forwarded to several campus group list-servers, but was shut down a few days later by theHarvard administration. Zuckerberg was charged by the administration with breach of security, violatingcopyrights,and violating individual privacy, and faced expulsion. Ultimately, however, the charges were dropped.
Zuckerbergexpanded on this initial project that semester by creating a social study tool ahead of an art historyfinal, by uploading
500 Augustanimages to a website, with one image per page along with a comment section.
He opened the site upto his classmates, and people started sharing their notes.The following semester, Zuckerberg began writing code for a new website in January 2004. He was inspired, he said,by an editorial in
about the Facemash incident.
Six days after the site launched, three Harvard seniors,Cameron Winklevoss,Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra,
accused Zuckerberg of intentionally misleading them into believing he would help them build a social networkcalledHarvardConnection.com,while he was instead using their ideas to build a competing product.
The threecomplained to the
Harvard Crimson
, and the newspaper began an investigation. The three later filed a lawsuit againstZuckerberg, subsequently settling.
Membership was initially restricted to students of Harvard College,and within the first month, more than half the
undergraduate population at Harvard was registered on the service.
Eduardo Saverin (business aspects),Dustin
Moskovitz(programmer), Andrew McCollum (graphic artist), and Chris Hughessoon joined Zuckerberg to help
promote the website. In March 2004, Facebook expanded toStanford,Columbia, and Yale.
It soon opened to theother Ivy Leagueschools, Boston University, New York University, MIT, and gradually most universities in Canada
and the United States.
Facebookincorporatedin the summer of 2004, and the entrepreneur Sean Parker , who had been informally advising
Zuckerberg, became the company's president.
It received its first investment later that month fromPayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.
The companydropped
The
Total active users
(in millions)
August 26, 2008100
1,665178.38%April 8, 2009200
22513.33%September 15, 2009300
15010%February 5, 2010400
1436.99%July 21, 2010500
1664.52%January 5, 2011600
1683.57% —70049 (ongoing)—
Facebook launched a high school version in September 2005, which Zuckerberg called the next logical step.
Facebook later expanded membership eligibility toemployees of several companies, including Apple Inc. and Microsoft.
Facebook was then opened on September 26, 2006, to everyone of ages 13 and older with a valid email address.
On October 24, 2007, Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million, givingFacebook a total implied value of around $15 billion.
In October 2008, Facebook announced that it would set up its international headquarters inDublin,
Ireland.
In September 2009, Facebook said that it had turned cash flow positive for the first time.
In November 2010, based on SecondMarket Inc., an exchange for shares of privately held companies, Facebook's value was $41
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