History of Facebook
A social networking website, Facebook is privately operated and owned by Facebook, Inc. The site has been functional since September 2006; anyone over 13 having a valid e-mail address can be registered as a Facebook user. The members with Login rights can add friends to the site and correspond with them via text messages, and sometimes update their personal profiles to suggest friends about themselves.
Moreover, members can join networks structured by workplace, school, or college. The name of website originates from the common name of books a university administration would give to students at the commencement of the academic year in the United States with a view of helping students to get to know each other in a socially befitting manner.
It was with the blessings of Mark Zuckerberg who founded Facebook in collaboration with his college roommates and fellow computer science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes while he was himself studying at Harvard University.
The registration with the site was formerly restricted to the founding members at Harvard only, but was later extended to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University as well. Later the membership expanded spontaneously to potentially accommodate any university student, then high school students, and at length, anyone aging 13 or beyond. At present the Facebook harbors over 400 million functional users worldwide.
The pioneering idealization of Facebook was inspired from a product introduced by Zuckerberg’s prep school Phillips Exeter Academy, which for years had been publishing and delivering a printed handbook of all students and members of faculty, could be unofficially declared the then “face book”.
From the onset Facebook has been facing some charges. A number of times it has been blocked in different countries such as, China, Vietnam, Syria, and Iran. Quite frequently it has been banned at work places to prevent employees from wasting time indulging with the service.
In addition to others, there has also been argument on “Privacy” that was compromised on a number of times. Facebook had also to settle a lawsuit regarding claims over intellectual property, particularly source code. The website has also been entangled in differences over the sale of fans and friends.
A study titled Compete.com, dated January 2009, has ranked Facebook as the most accessed / visited social network during a month by worldwide active users around the globe after MySpace. Entertainment Weekly ranks it in its end-of-the-decade ‘best-of’ list, pronouncing, ‘Had Facebook not existed, how would we “stalk our exes”, remember our dear ones’ birthdays, pester our friends, and play an exciting game of Scrabulous?’
Recently, there have been reports about Facebook suggesting an initial public offering — “issue equity shares as stock to investors”. Zuckerberg, however, has emphasized that it will not be held for a couple of more years, as the company does not need additional capital any more. Some analysts have also concerns that the Facebook IPO could specifically be a weak one.