Today, no one can deny that Facebook, the icon of today's social network, makes such a strong impact to the world. People go in, communicate each other, share photos, videos, and do other things to connect each other. And I am going to briefly go over about facebook's history, and its fun facts.
History:
In 2003, Mark Zuckberg, the creator of facebook, made Facemash at Harvard. Zuckerberg hacked into school server and took pictures of students. And using those pictures, he made Facemash. Facemash basically lets users choose one picture from two pictures by asking who is 'hotter'. Obviously, Facemash was a total success. However, as he violated many laws including copyrights, and privacy, the website was shut down even though he was not charged with any offenses. And this Facemash becomes the starting point of Facebook as Zuckerberg takes ideas from making Facemash and implement those into Facebook.
Based on the success of Facemash, Zuckerberg started to make the website called Facebook and on February, 2004, he published it. But, three harvard students, the Winklevoss brothers and Narendra, sued him for intentionally copying their ideas while helping them building social network. In fact, Zuckerberg was hired by them to make a social network website called HavardConnection. While he was making the website, he launched Facebook. And those people who sued them thought that Zuckerberg intentionally delayed making their social network in order to make Facebook. Also, for the evidence, there are emails between Zuckberg and his friend about making Facebook and delaying making HarvardConnection. In 2008, as Zuckerberg and three people settled the case and gave 65 million dollars worth shares of Facebook to them, another law suit started since Zuckerberg intentionally hid document, which could have proved the stock more valuable. That is why there are so many lawsuits between them even todady.
Even though, there were many troubles, Facebook started to spread around unbelievably. First, membership was only allowed to Harvard students. After a month, it was opened to other universities including Yale, Columbia, and Stanford. And gradually, it was opened to the public.
As it became successful, Facebook located its headquarter in Palo Alto, California and received many investments from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, entrepreneur Sean Parker, Microsoft, and others. And in 2009, Facebook turned cash-flow positive for the first time. And in 2010, Facebook's value was 41 billion dollars. And now it is the third largest U.S. Web company after Google and Amazon. Also, Facebook reached one trillion pageviews in June of 2011.
The Purpose:
Obviously, the purpose of Facebook is a social networking service. User can post photos, personal information, contact information. Also, users can communicate with friends and other users through private or public messages. Also, users can make interest groups. As time goes by, Facebook started to add many aspects including chatting option, email services, and etc. Also, Facebook allowed applications so that third developers could develop application on Facebook.
So today, Facebook has a more meaning than just a social network. It makes the market for the third developer by allowing them to make their own apps on Facebook. Also, by making all the options that users need, Facebook tried to lock in all the users in order to compete against competetitors. Thus, as started to connect college students at Harvard, it then spread around the world and connected the world. And now Facebook is a community of the the world.
Advertisement:
Facebook earns most of the revenue from advertising. Local advertisement, which uses users' IP to find the location, gives information to its local people. For example, if users are logged in Pittsburgh, they would see information mostly in Pittsburgh. By doing that, Facebook could have many sponsors that want to use Facebook to have advertisement because Facebook can have all the sponsors from all difference places.
Controversies:
Even though Facebook is a tremendous success, it still has many criticisms. First of all, Facebook is blocked from many Islamic nations due to contaninganti-Islamic content and religious discrimination. As Facebook became popular, this became an issue. Second of all, and the most important issue of Facebook is privacy. Since there are more than 800 million active users, privacy issue is critical. And unfortunately, safety of user accounts has been compromised couple times. As a matter of fact, Facebook focuses more on privacy since the beginning. And lastly, since there is not a strict way to filter age, even though Facebook is open to people with age over 13, children who are under 13 can still use it. And this becomes an issue as Facebook becomes big and might contain content that might not be suitable for under aged children. Therefore, even though Facebook is a great success, it needs much improvement too.
Zuckerberg's Visit to CMU:
In Noverber 8, 2011, Mark Zuckberg visited Carnegie Mellon University. While at CMU, he met faculty members and students. The prime purpose of the visit was to recruit future employees from CMU. As he stated, "Facebook looks for really entrepreneurial folks, people who are trying to have a big impact on the world and who have the ability to look at many of the hundred different problems at once and say, OK this is the one that we really need to solve". As he visited CMU, he also pointed out the future of Facebook from connecting all the people in the world via Facebook.
Future of Facebook:
So what now? There are many predictions that people make about the future of Facebook. As of 2011, Zuckerberg desires to connect all the people using Facebook's graph. As Google made its own social network Google+, Zuckerberg needs to compete against it. As Needleman, however explains that Google needs to worry instead of Facebook by saying, "For users, Facebook will, probably quickly, learn what each of us is likely to like, by watching what we do on the site. This will help solve a big problem on a Web overloaded with novel information: Discovery. By mining the "data exhaust" collected from the activities, links, likes, and so on that we all generate, Facebook should be able to predict, with increasing accuracy, what we're most likely to engage with, be it music or grocery ingredients". However, the question lies what direction Facebook is going. Because it can adapt to more application-based social network that has many utilities to it. Or instead making it simple as possible as Zuckerberg designed in the beginning. Those decisions we don't know. But we know that in the meantime, Facebook is plowing ahead with its partners Netflix, Hulu and Spotify. Thus, it partners with video and music website in order to make its own social platform. Instead of just a social network, Facebook tries to make its own platform under its website.
Fun Facts about Facebook:
1. When Facebook was first made, the main function was to share file.
2. In the early Facebook logo, there was Al Pacino's face.
3. Facebook had hidden Easter eggs
if you press certain pattern on the keyboard, circles started to show up in the Facebook.
4. There's an App on Facebook to see what's on the Facebook Cafe Menu for employees.
5. As of November 2011, there are more than 800 million active users.
6. As of November 2011, average user has 130 friends.
7. More than 70 languages are available on Facebook.
8. More than 75 % of users are outside of the U.S.
Rumors:
1. Facebook is going to charge you
-Turned out as false and when this rumor was spreading out, Facebook posted, "It's free and always will be" on its website.
2. Friends will see the websites I visit, even when I'm not on Facebook
-This is partially true since users can enable it so that users can 'share' it.
3. The timeline is going to show all my photos and info.
-False
References:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/22/scitech/main20110419.shtml
http://mashable.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook
http://www.cmu.edu/
http://mashable.com/2010/07/22/facebook-facts/
http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/28/tech/social-media/facebook-rumors/index.html
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