FACEBOOK

Facebook is a social networking website launched in February 2004 that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc., with more than 500 million active users in July 2010.Users can add people as friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by workplace, school, or college. The website's name stems from the colloquial name of books given to students at the start of the academic year by university administrations in the US with the intention of helping students to get to know each other better. Facebook allows anyone who declares themselves to be aged 13 or older to become a member of the website.


Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow computer science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.The website's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy 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.

Facebook has met with some controversy. It has been blocked intermittently in several countries including Pakistan,Syria,People's Republic of China,Vietnam,and Iran.It has also been banned at many places of work to discourage employees from wasting time using the service.Privacy has also been an issue, and it[clarification needed] has been compromised several times. Facebook settled a lawsuit regarding claims over source code and intellectual property.The site has also been involved in controversy over the sale of fans and friends.
A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social network by worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace.Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade 'best-of' list, saying, "How on earth did we stalk our exes, remember our co-workers' birthdays, bug our friends, and play a rousing game of Scrabulous before Facebook?"

The site represented a Harvard University version of Hot or Not, according to the Harvard Crimson. 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, Zuckerberg hacked into the protected areas of Harvard's computer network and copied the houses' private dormitory ID images. Harvard at that time did not have a student directory with photos, and basic information and the initial site generated 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours online.That the initial site mirrored people’s physical community—with their real identities—represented the key aspects of what later became Facebook.


The site was quickly forwarded to several campus group list-servers but was shut down a few days later by the Harvard administration. Zuckerberg was charged by the administration with breach of security, violating copyrights, and violating individual privacy, and faced expulsion, but ultimately the charges were dropped. Zuckerberg expanded on this initial project that semester by creating a social study tool ahead of an art history final by uploading 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 following semester, Zuckerberg began writing code for a new website in January 2004. He was inspired, he said, by an editorial in The Harvard Crimson about the Facemash incident.On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook", originally located at thefacebook.com.


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.Facebook was then opened on September 26, 2006, to everyone of ages 13 and older with a valid e-mail address.On October 24, 2007, Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million, giving Facebook a total implied value of around $15 billion.Microsoft's purchase included rights to place international ads on Facebook.In October 2008, Facebook announced that it was to set up its international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.In September 2009, Facebook claimed that it had turned cash flow positive for the first time.In June 2010, an online marketplace for trading private company stock reflected a valuation of $11.5 billion.




Over time, Facebook has added features to its website. On September 6, 2006, a News Feed was announced, which appears on every user's homepage and highlights information including profile changes, upcoming events, and birthdays of the user's friends.[74] This has enabled spammers and other users to manipulate these features by creating illegitimate events or posting fake birthdays to attract attention to their profile or cause.[75] Initially, the News Feed caused dissatisfaction among Facebook users; some complained it was too cluttered and full of undesired information, while others were concerned it made it too easy for other people to track down individual activities (such as changes in relationship status, events, and conversations with other users).[76] In response to this dissatisfaction, Zuckerberg issued an apology for the site's failure to include appropriate customizable privacy features. Since then, users have been able to control what types of information are shared automatically with friends. Users are now able to prevent friends from seeing updates about certain types of activities, including profile changes, Wall posts, and newly added friends.[77] On February 23, 2010, Facebook was granted US patent 7669123 on certain aspects of their News Feed. The patent covers News Feeds where links are provided so that one user can participate in the same activity of another user.[78] The patent may encourage Facebook to pursue action against websites that violate the patent, which may potentially include websites such as Twitter.[79]