From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the website. For the collection of photographs of people after which it is named, see Facebook (directory).
 | ||
| Type | Public | |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States (2004)[1] | |
| Founder(s) | ||
| Headquarters | Menlo Park, California, U.S. | |
| Area served | Worldwide | |
| Key people |
| |
| Industry | Internet | |
| Revenue |  US$ 3.71 billion (2011), up from $1.97b (2010)[2] | |
| Employees | 3000+ (2011)[3] | |
| Website | Facebook.com | |
| IPv6 support | www.v6.facebook.com | |
| Alexa rank |  2 (March 2012)[4] | |
| Type of site | Social networking service | |
| Advertising | Banner ads, referral marketing, casual games | |
| Registration | Required | |
| Users | 845 million[2] (active December 31, 2011) | |
| Available in | Multilingual | |
| Launched | February 4, 2004 | |
| Current status | Active | |
| ||
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook Inc.[1] As of February 2012, Facebook has more than 845 million active users.[5] Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists such as "People From Work" or "Close Friends". The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other. Facebook allows any users who declare themselves to be at least 13 years old to become registered users of the site.[6]
Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.[7] The Web site's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in theBoston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and eventually to anyone aged 13 and over. However, based on ConsumersReports.org in May 2011, there are 7.5 million children under 13 with accounts and 5 million under 10, violating the site's terms of service.[8]
A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly active users.[9]Entertainment Weekly included the site 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?"[10] Quantcast estimates Facebook has 138.9 million monthly unique U.S. visitors in May 2011.[11] According to Social Media Today, in April 2010 an estimated 41.6% of the U.S. population had a Facebook account.[12] Nevertheless, Facebook's market growth started to stall in some regions, with the site losing 7 million active users in the United States and Canada in May 2011.[13] Facebook filed for an initial public offering on February 1, 2012.[14]
Contents[hide] |
History
Main articles: History of Facebook and Timeline of Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg wrote Facemash, the predecessor to Facebook, on October 28, 2003, while attending Harvard as a sophomore. According to The Harvard Crimson, the site was comparable to Hot or Not, and "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".[15][16]
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 "facebook" (a directory with photos and basic information), though individual houses had been issuing their own paper facebooks since the mid-1980s. Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours online.[15][17]
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. Ultimately, the charges were dropped.[18] 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.[17] 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.[19] On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook", originally located at thefacebook.com.[20]
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 network called HarvardConnection.com, while he was instead using their ideas to build a competing product.[21] The three complained to the Harvard Crimson, and the newspaper began an investigation. The three later filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, subsequently settling.[22]
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.[23]Eduardo Saverin (business aspects), Dustin Moskovitz (programmer), Andrew McCollum (graphic artist), and Chris Hughes soon joined Zuckerberg to help promote the website. In March 2004, Facebook expanded to Stanford, Columbia, and Yale.[24] It soon opened to the other Ivy League schools, Boston University, New York University, MIT, and gradually most universities in Canada and the United States.[25][26]
Facebook was incorporated in mid-2004, and the entrepreneur Sean Parker, who had been informally advising Zuckerberg, became the company's president.[27] In June 2004, Facebook moved its base of operations to Palo Alto, California.[24] It received its first investment later that month from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.[28] The company dropped The from its name after purchasing the domain name facebook.com in 2005 for $200,000.[29]
| Date | Users (in millions) | Days later | Monthly growth[N 2] |
|---|---|---|---|
| August 26, 2008 | 100[30] | 1,665 | 178.38% |
| April 8, 2009 | 200[31] | 225 | 13.33% |
| September 15, 2009 | 300[32] | 160 | 9.38% |
| February 5, 2010 | 400[33] | 143 | 6.99% |
| July 21, 2010 | 500[34] | 166 | 4.52% |
| January 5, 2011 | 600[35][N 3] | 168 | 3.57% |
| May 30, 2011 | 700[36] | 145 | 3.45% |
| September 22, 2011 | 800[37] | 115 | 3.73% |
Facebook launched a high-school version in September 2005, which Zuckerberg called the next logical step.[38]At that time, high-school networks required an invitation to join.[39] Facebook later expanded membership eligibility to employees of several companies, including Apple Inc. and Microsoft.[40] Facebook was then opened on September 26, 2006, to everyone of age 13 and older with a valid email address.[41][42]
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.[43] Microsoft's purchase included rights to place international ads on Facebook.[44] In October 2008, Facebook announced that it would set up its international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.[45] In September 2009, Facebook said that it had turned cash-flow positive for the first time.[46] In November 2010, based on SecondMarket Inc., an exchange for shares of privately held companies, Facebook's value was $41 billion (slightly surpassing eBay's) and it became the third largest U.S. Web company after Google and Amazon.[47]
Traffic to Facebook increased steadily after 2009. More people visited Facebook than Google for the week ending March 13, 2010.[48]
In March 2011 it was reported that Facebook removes approximately 20,000 profiles from the site every day for various infractions, including spam, inappropriate content and underage use, as part of its efforts to boost cyber security.[49]
In early 2011, Facebook announced plans to move to its new headquarters, the former Sun Microsystems campus in Menlo Park, California.[50][51]
Release of statistics by DoubleClick showed that Facebook reached one trillion pageviews in the month of June 2011, making it the most visited website in the world.[52] It should however be noted that Google and some of its selected websites are not counted in the DoubleClick rankings. According to the Nielsen Media Research study, released in December 2011, Facebook is the second most accessed website in the US.[53]
Website
Main articles: Facebook features and Facebook Platform
 | This section may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. Please consider moving more of the content into sub-articles and using this article for a summary of the key points of the subject. (December 2011) |
Users can create profiles with photos, lists of personal interests, contact information, and other personal information. Users can communicate with friends and other users through private or public messages and a chat feature. They can also create and join interest groups and "like pages" (called "fan pages" until April 19, 2010), some of which are maintained by organizations as a means of advertising.[54] A 2012 Pew Internet and American Life study identified that between 20-30% of Facebook users are "power users" who frequently link, poke, post and tag themselves and others.[55]
To allay concerns about privacy, Facebook enables users to choose their own privacy settings and choose who can see specific parts of their profile.[56] The Web site is free to users, and generates revenue from advertising, such as banner ads.[57] Facebook requires a user's name and profile picture (if applicable) to be accessible by everyone. Users can control who sees other information they have shared, as well as who can find them in searches, through their privacy settings.[58]
The media often compares Facebook to MySpace, but one significant difference between the two Web sites is the level of customization.[59] Another difference is Facebook's requirement that users give their true identity, a demand that MySpace does not make.[60] MySpace allows users to decorate their profiles using HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), while Facebook allows only plain text.[61] Facebook has a number of features with which users may interact. They include the Wall, a space on every user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see;[62] Pokes, which allows users to send a virtual "poke" to each other (a notification then tells a user that they have been poked);[63] Photos, where users can upload albums and photos;[64] andStatus, which allows users to inform their friends of their whereabouts and actions.[65] Depending on privacy settings, anyone who can see a user's profile can also view that user's Wall. In July 2007, Facebook began allowing users to post attachments to the Wall, whereas the Wall was previously limited to textual content only.[62]
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.[66] This 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.[67] Initially, the News Feed caused dissatisfaction among Facebook users; some complained it was too cluttered and full of undesired information, others were concerned that it made it too easy for others to track individual activities (such as relationship status changes, events, and conversations with other users).[68]
In response, 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 user-set categories of friends from seeing updates about certain types of activities, including profile changes, Wall posts, and newly added friends.[69]
On February 23, 2010, Facebook was granted a patent[70] on certain aspects of its News Feed. The patent covers News Feeds in which links are provided so that one user can participate in the same activity of another user.[71] The patent may encourage Facebook to pursue action against Web sites that violate its patent, which may potentially include Web sites such as Twitter.[72]
One of the most popular applications on Facebook is the Photos application, where users can upload albums and photos.[73]Facebook allows users to upload an unlimited number of photos, compared with other image hosting services such as Photobucketand Flickr, which apply limits to the number of photos that a user is allowed to upload. During the first years, Facebook users were limited to 60 photos per album. As of May 2009, this limit has been increased to 200 photos per album.[74][75][76][77]
Privacy settings can be set for individual albums, limiting the groups of users that can see an album. For example, the privacy of an album can be set so that only the user's friends can see the album, while the privacy of another album can be set so that all Facebook users can see it. Another feature of the Photos application is the ability to "tag", or label, users in a photo. For instance, if a photo contains a user's friend, then the user can tag the friend in the photo. This sends a notification to the friend that they have been tagged, and provides them a link to see the photo.[78]
Facebook Notes was introduced on August 22, 2006, a blogging feature that allowed tags and embeddable images. Users were later able to import blogs from Xanga, LiveJournal, Blogger, and other blogging services.[41] During the week of April 7, 2008, Facebook released a Comet-based[79] instant messaging application called "Chat" to several networks,[80] which allows users to communicate with friends and is similar in functionality to desktop-based instant messengers.
Facebook launched Gifts on February 8, 2007, which allows users to send virtual gifts to their friends that appear on the recipient's profile. Gifts cost $1.00 each to purchase, and a personalized message can be attached to each gift.[81][82] On May 14, 2007, Facebook launched Marketplace, which lets users post free classified ads.[83] Marketplace has been compared to Craigslist byCNET, which points out that the major difference between the two is that listings posted by a user on Marketplace are seen only by users in the same network as that user, whereas listings posted on Craigslist can be seen by anyone.[84]
On July 20, 2008, Facebook introduced "Facebook Beta", a significant redesign of its user interface on selected networks. The Mini-Feed and Wall were consolidated, profiles were separated into tabbed sections, and an effort was made to create a "cleaner" look.[85] After initially giving users a choice to switch, Facebook began migrating all users to the new version starting in September 2008.[86] On December 11, 2008, it was announced that Facebook was testing a simpler signup process.[87]
On June 13, 2009, Facebook introduced a "Usernames" feature, whereby pages can be linked with simpler URLs such as
http://www.facebook.com/facebook instead of http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=20531316728.[88] Many new smartphones offer access to Facebook services through either their Web browsers or applications. An official Facebook application is available for the operating systems Android, iOS, and webOS. Nokia and Research In Motion both provide Facebook applications for their own mobile devices. More than 425 million active users access Facebook through mobile devices across 200 mobile operators in 60 countries.[89]
On November 15, 2010, Facebook announced a new "Facebook Messages" service. In a media event that day, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, "It's true that people will be able to have an @facebook.com email addresses, but it's not email". The launch of such a feature had been anticipated for some time before the announcement, with some calling it a "Gmail killer". The system, to be available to all of the Web site's users, combines text messaging, instant messaging, emails, and regular messages, and will include privacy settings similar to those of other Facebook services. Codenamed "Project Titan", Facebook Messages took 15 months to develop.[90][91]
In February 2011, Facebook began to use the hCalendar microformat to mark up events, and the hCard microformat for the events' venues, enabling the extraction of details to users' own calendar or mapping applications.[92]
Since April 2011 Facebook users have had the ability to make live voice calls via Facebook Chat, allowing users to chat with others from all over the world. This feature, which is provided free through T-Mobile's new Bobsled service, lets the user add voice to the current Facebook Chat as well as leave voice messages on Facebook.[93]
On July 6, 2011, Facebook launched its video calling services using Skype as its technology partner. It allows one to one calling using a Skype Rest API.[94]
On September 14, 2011, Facebook launched a Subscribe button. The feature allows for users to follow public updates, and these are the people most often broadcasting their ideas.[95] There were major modifications that the site released on September 22, 2011.[96]
As reported by TechCrunch on February 15, 2012, Facebook is introducing ‘Verified Account’ concept like that of Twitter & Google+. Though as of 3 March 2012, verified accounts don’t get any badges or denotations, but such accounts will get more priority in ‘Subscription Suggestions’ of Facebook.[97]
on March 6, 2012, Facebook officially launched its Messenger for Windows.[98]
Privacy
According to comScore, an internet marketing research company, Facebook collects as much data from its visitors as Google and Microsoft, but considerably less than Yahoo!.[99] In 2010, the security team began expanding its efforts to reduce the risks to users'privacy,[100] but privacy concerns remain. On November 6, 2007, Facebook launched Facebook Beacon, which was an ultimately failed attempt to advertise to friends of users using the knowledge of what purchases friends made. As of March 2012, Facebook's usage of its user data is under close scrutiny.[101]
FTC settlement
On November 29, 2011, Facebook agreed to settle US Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived consumers by failing to keep privacy promises.[102]
Reception
According to comScore, Facebook is the leading social networking site based on monthly unique visitors, having overtaken main competitor MySpace in April 2008.[104] ComScore reports that Facebook attracted 130 million unique visitors in May 2010, an increase of 8.6 million people.[105] According to Alexa, the Web site's ranking among all Web sites increased from 60th to 7th in worldwide traffic, from September 2006 to September 2007, and is currently 2nd.[106] Quantcast ranks the Web site 2nd in the U.S. in traffic,[107] and Compete.com ranks it 2nd in the U.S.[108] The Web site is the most popular for uploading photos, with 50 billion uploaded cumulatively.[109] In 2010, Sophos's "Security Threat Report 2010" polled over 500 firms, 60% of which responded that they believed that Facebook was the social network that posed the biggest threat to security, well ahead of MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn.[100]
Facebook is the most popular social networking site in several English-speaking countries, including Canada,[110] the United Kingdom,[111] and the United States.[112][113][114][115] In regional Internet markets, Facebook penetration is highest in North America (69 percent), followed by Middle East-Africa (67 percent), Latin America (58 percent), Europe (57 percent), and Asia-Pacific (17 percent).[116]
The Web site has won awards such as placement into the "Top 100 Classic Websites" by PC Magazine in 2007,[117] and winning the "People's Voice Award" from the Webby Awards in 2008.[118] In a 2006 study conducted by Student Monitor, a New Jersey-based company specializing in research concerning the college student market, Facebook was named the second most popular thing among undergraduates, tied with beer and only ranked lower than the iPod.[119]
On March 2010, Judge Richard Seeborg issued an order approving the class settlement in Lane v. Facebook, Inc., the class action lawsuit arising out of Facebook's Beacon program.
In 2010, Facebook won the Crunchie "Best Overall Startup Or Product" for the third year in a row[120] and was recognized as one of the "Hottest Silicon Valley Companies" by Lead411.[121] However, in a July 2010 survey performed by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, Facebook received a score of 64 out of 100, placing it in the bottom 5% of all private-sector companies in terms of customer satisfaction, alongside industries such as the IRS e-file system, airlines, and cable companies. The reasons why Facebook scored so poorly include privacy problems, frequent changes to the Web site's interface, the results returned by the News Feed, and spam.[122]
In December 2008, the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory ruled that Facebook is a valid protocol to serve court notices to defendants. It is believed to be the world's first legal judgement that defines a summons posted on Facebook as legally binding.[123] In March 2009, the New Zealand High Court associate justice David Gendall allowed for the serving of legal papers on Craig Axe by the company Axe Market Garden via Facebook.[124][125] Employers (such as Virgin Atlantic Airways) have also used Facebook as a means to keep tabs on their employees and have even been known to fire them over posts they have made.[126]
By 2005, the use of Facebook had already become so ubiquitous that the generic verb "facebooking" had come into use to describe the process of browsing others' profiles or updating one's own.[127] In 2008, Collins English Dictionary declared "Facebook" as its new Word of the Year.[128] In December 2009, the New Oxford American Dictionary declared its word of the year to be the verb "unfriend", defined as "To remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook. As in, 'I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a fight.'"[129]
In early 2010, Openbook was established, an avowed parody (and privacy advocacy) Web site[130] that enables text-based searches of those Wall posts that are available to "Everyone", i.e. to everyone on the Internet.
Writers for The Wall Street Journal found in 2010 that Facebook apps were transmitting identifying information to "dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies". The apps used an HTTP referrer which exposed the user's identity and sometimes their friends'. Facebook said, "We have taken immediate action to disable all applications that violate our terms".[131]
In January 2012 the countries with the most Facebook users were:
- United States with 152.5 million members,
- India with 43.5 million members
- Indonesia with 43.1 million members
- Brazil with 37.9 million members
- Mexico with 32.0 million members [132]
All of the above total 309 million members or about 38.6 percent of 800 million Facebook's worldwide members.[133]
Criticism
Main article: Criticism of Facebook
Facebook has met with controversies. It has been blocked intermittently in several countries including the People's Republic of China,[134] Iran,[135] Uzbekistan,[136] Pakistan,[137]Syria,[138] and Bangladesh on different bases. For example, it was banned in many countries of the world on the basis of allowed content judged as anti-Islamic and containing religious discrimination. It has also been banned at many workplaces to prevent employees from using it during work hours.[139] The privacy of Facebook users has also been an issue, and the safety of user accounts has been compromised several times. Facebook has settled a lawsuit regarding claims over source code and intellectual property.[140] In May 2011 emails were sent to journalists and bloggers making critical allegations about Google's privacy policies; however it was later discovered that the anti-Google campaign, conducted by PR giant Burson-Marsteller, was paid for by Facebook in what CNN referred to as "a new level skullduggery" and which Daily Beast called a "clumsy smear".[141]
In July 2011 German authorities began to discuss the prohibition of events organized on Facebook. The decision is based on several cases of overcrowding by people not originally invited.[142][143] In one instance, 1,600 "guests" attended the 16th birthday party for a Hamburg girl who accidentally posted the invitation for the event as public. After reports of overcrowding, more than a hundred police were deployed for crowd control. A policeman was injured and eleven participants were arrested for assault, property damage and resistance to authorities.[144] In another unexpectedly overcrowded event, 41 young people were arrested and at least 16 injured.[145]
In May 2011, HCL Technologies announced that approximately 50% of British employers had banned Facebook from the workplace.[146]
A 2011 study in the online journal First Monday, "Why Parents Help Their Children Lie to Facebook About Age: Unintended Consequences of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act," examines how parents consistently enable children as young as 10 years old to sign up for accounts, directly violating Facebook's policy banning young visitors. This policy technically allows Facebook to avoid conflicts with the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), requiring that minors aged 13 or younger gain explicit parental consent to access commercial websites. Of the more than 1,000 households surveyed for the study, more than three-quarters (76%) of parents reported that their child joined Facebook when she was younger than 13, the minimum age in the site's terms of service. The study notes that, in response to widespread reports of underage users, a Facebook executive has said that "Facebook removes 20,000 people a day, people who are underage." The study's authors also note, "Indeed, Facebook takes various measures both to restrict access to children and delete their accounts if they join." The findings of the study raise questions primarily about the shortcomings of federal law, but also implicitly continue to raise questions about whether or not Facebook does enough to publicize its terms of service with respect to minors. Only 53% of parents said they were aware that Facebook has a minimum signup age; 35% of these parents believe that the minimum age is a site recommendation (not a condition of site use), or thought the signup age was 16 or 18, and not 13.[147]
In November 2011, several Facebook users reported that their accounts were hacked and their profile pictures were replaced with pornographic images. For more than a week, users' news feeds were spammed with pornographic, violent and sexual contents. It has been reported that more than 200,000 accounts in Bangalore, India were hacked. Facebook has denied the claims, citing that "safety of the users was on the top of their priority list".[148][149]
