What Is Facebook ?Facebook is a social networking website intended to connect friends, family, and business associates. It is the largest of the networking sites, with the runner up being MySpace. It began as a college networking website and has expanded to include anyone and everyone. Facebook was founded by 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and originally called thefacebook. It was quickly successful on campus and expanded beyond Harvard into other Ivy League schools. With the phenomenon growing in popularity, Zuckerberg enlisted two other students, Duston Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, to assist. Within months, thefacebook became a nationwide college networking website. Zuckerberg and Moskovitz left Harvard to run thefacebook full time shortly after taking the site national. In August of 2005, thefacebook was renamed Facebook, and the domain was purchased for a reported $200,000 US Dollars (USD). At that time, it was only available to schools, universities, organizations, and companies within English speaking countries, but has since expanded to include anyone. Facebook users create a profile page that shows their friends and networks information about themselves. The choice to include a profile in a network means that everyone withing that network can view the profile. The profile typically includes the following: Information, Status, Friends, Friends in Other Networks, Photos, Notes, Groups, and The Wall. Users are able to search for friends and acquaintances by e-mail address, school, university, or just by typing in a name or location for search. When people become friends, they are able to see all of each others' profiles including contact information. E-mail notifications let users know when new friends have chosen to add them to their list or when someone has sent a message to them within the system. A popular feature on Facebook is the ability to share photographs uploaded from a phone, camera, or hard drive. As with other private information, users have the option to allow only friends to see their pictures or anyone. There is an unlimited amount of storage available, which is a major advantage of Facebook's photograph sharing capabilities. Groups can be created by users. These can include anything from grade school connections to hobbies and interests. Groups can be public and available to everyone or private, meaning only those invited can join and view discussions. Similarly, the Events feature allows friends to organize parties, concerts, and other get togethers in the real world. Users can also become fans of everything such as people, organizations, television shows, movies, and musicians. There are countless applications available to add to a profile. They range from a list of Top Friends to movie compatibility with others, and maps of where users have traveled. These applications are created by individuals outside of Facebook's employment who are known as Developers. Users of Facebook can share news stories, video, and other files with friends. Most news and video websites have buttons that can be clicked to automatically share the story or video on a feed. The person sharing can make comments about the shared item that their friends will see. Personal notes can also be written and shared with friends. When sharing an item, users can attach the item to their Wall for all to see, or can tag individual people that they think would be most interested in seeing the item. When a user is tagged, they receive an e-mail notification. Facebook had a redesign in late 2008, intended to streamline the website and make it easier to see what friends were doing. It has seen outstanding growth since its inception and is poised to maintain its dominance in social networking. In early 2009, Facebook users worldwide were nearly double that of its older competitor MySpace.
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Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (born May 14 1984, White Plains, United States), better known simply as Mark Zuckerberg, is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur famed for being one of the creators of Facebook. To develop the social network, Zuckerberg had the support of some of his fellow students from Harvard, and his roommates Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. Currently, he is the youngest person listed on Forbes, with a fortune valued over 6.9 billion dollars. He was declared Person of the Year in 2010 by Time Magazine. Beginnings Mark Zuckerberg studied at Ardsley High School, and later at the Philips Exeter Academy. In 2002 he launched with his friend Adam D’Angelo (the current chief technician of Facebook), Synapse Media Player. The success was noteworthy due to the ability of the program to predict songs based on the preferences, and previous selections, of the user. Different software companies, such as Microsoft and Apple, were interested in obtaining the rights to the program, but in the end no contracts were signed.
Studies
He began studying in Harvard in 2003 and joined the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity. He began to develop computer programs such as Coursematch, that allowed students to see the list of other students in class; as well as Facesmash.com, a web site to rate female students of the university based on their looks. Because of this, the Department of Information Services at Harvard charged Zuckerberg with infringement of security, and breach of privacy and intellectual property.
Harvard insisted that Zuckerberg had hacked the university’s intranet to obtain photos of the students without authorization and for this own benefit. It has been suggested, however, that Zuckerberg obtained the photos merely via the student directory of the university.
Zuckerberg stated that he thought the information should be available freely to the public. The actions taken by the Administrative Council of Harvard regarding the matter were not made public. In 2004 Zuckerberg created Facebook after being absent from the university for one year. A year later he dropped out of his studies.
Companies such as Yahoo! and Viacom, among others, attempted to buy Facebook. Former Yahoo! member Terry Semel, offered 1 billion dollars for Facebook, but the offer was rejected.
On the 24th of October 2007, Facebook and Microsoft announced that Microsoft had bought 1.6% of the social networks’ shares. It was mentioned that in the contract Facebook was valued at approximately 15 billion dollars. However, as a result of their association, the social network could now be worth even more.
Controversies
Stealing of Idea
Brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, former rowing champions, as well as friend Divy Narendra, all studied at Harvard, as depicted in the movie The Social Network (2010). They asked Zuckerberg to help them create a social network web site for Harvard university students. The three of them, who created the company ConnectU, maintain that Zuckerberg stole their idea and deliberately delayed their project while he was working on his own project (using the stolen idea), Facebook. A lawsuit was made in 2004 with allegations of breach of contract, appropriation of classified commercial information, and theft of intellectual property. Zuckerberg declared that he never signed any contract and therefore he was only an associate. He also stated that he was suffering economic losses by being legally pursued.
In February 2010 there was a merger between ConnectU and MySpace to achieve a higher number of members and in this way call themselves the most demanded and sought after social network.
The Social Network
The Social Network is a movie directed by David Fincher that made its debut the 1st of October of 2010 in the United States. It is based on the book The Accidental Billionaires: Sex, Money, Betrayal and the Founding of Facebook by Ben Mezrich, and it recounts the story of the creation of Facebook. Jesse Eisenberg plays Mark Zuckerberg. |
