 Facebook Logo |
|
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | Cambridge, Massachusetts[1] (2004) |
| Founder(s) | |
| Headquarters | Palo Alto, California, U.S., currently being moved to Menlo Park, California, U.S. |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people |
|
| Revenue | ▲ US$2 billion (2010 est.)[2] |
| Net income | N/A |
| Employees | 2000+ (2010)[3] |
Facebook is a social networking service and website started in February 2004. It is owned by Facebook, Inc.[1] As of July 2011[update], Facebook has more than 750 million users who use the website at least once every 30 days.[4][5] Users may make a personal profile, add other users as friends, and send messages. Facebook users must register before using the site. Users may join user groups. These groups can be for a workplace, school or college, or other interest. The name of the service comes from the name for the book given to students at the start of the school year by some universities in the United States. These books help students get to know each other better. Facebook allows any users who say they are at least 13 years old to become users of the website.
Facebook was started by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow computer science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.[6] The website's membership was only for Harvard students at first. Later it included other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It eventually opened for students at other universities. After that, it opened to high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over. Based on ConsumersReports.org in May 2011, there are 7.5 million children under 13 with accounts. This breaks the website's rules.[7]
A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly active users.[8] Entertainment Weekly put the site on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list. It said, "How on earth did we talk our exes, remember our co-workers' birthdays, bug our friends, and play a rousing game of Scrabulous before Facebook?"[9] Quantcast estimates Facebook had 138.9 million monthly different U.S. visitors in May 2011.[10] According to Social Media Today, in April 2010 about 41.6% of the U.S. population had a Facebook account.[11] Facebook's growth started to slow down in some areas. The site lost 7 million active users in the United States and Canada in May 2011.[12]
[change] Controversy
Facebook has been involved in many controversies over privacy.[13] Some of these controversies have been about people being able to see personal information that other people post, and others are about companies and advertisers being able to see users' personal information.
[change] References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Eldon, Eric (December 18, 2008). "2008 Growth Puts Facebook In Better Position to Make Money". VentureBeat (San Francisco). http://venturebeat.com/2008/12/18/2008-growth-puts-facebook-in-better-position-to-make-money/. Retrieved December 19, 2008.
- ↑ Womack, Brian (December 16, 2010). "Facebook 2010 Sales Said Likely to Reach $2 Billion, More Than Estimated". Bloomberg (New York). http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-16/facebook-sales-said-likely-to-reach-2-billion-this-year-beating-target.html. Retrieved January 5, 2011.
- ↑ "Press Info", Facebook. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
- ↑ "Goldman to clients: Facebook has 600 million users". MSNBC. January 5, 2011. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40929239/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/. Retrieved July January 15, 2011.
- ↑ "Facebook Has More Than 600 Million Users, Goldman Tells Clients". Business Insider. January 5, 2011. http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-has-more-than-600-million-users-goldman-tells-clients-2011-1. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
- ↑ Carlson, Nicholas (March 5, 2010). "At Last – The Full Story Of How Facebook Was Founded". Business Insider. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-facebook-was-founded-2010-3#we-can-talk-about-that-after-i-get-all-the-basic-functionality-up-tomorrow-night-1.
- ↑ "Five million Facebook users are 10 or younger". ConsumerReports.org. May 10, 2011. http://news.consumerreports.org/electronics/2011/05/five-million-facebook-users-are-10-or-younger.html. Retrieved May 15, 2011.
- ↑ Kazeniac, Andy (February 9, 2009). "Social Networks: Facebook Takes Over Top Spot, Twitter Climbs". Compete Pulse blog. http://blog.compete.com/2009/02/09/facebook-myspace-twitter-social-network/. Retrieved February 17, 2009.
- ↑ Geier, Thom; Jensen, Jeff; Jordan, Tina; Lyons, Margaret; Markovitz, Adam; et al. (December 11, 2009). "THE 100 Greatest Movies, TV Shows, Albums, Books, Characters, Scenes, Episodes, Songs, Dresses, Music Videos, and Trends that entertained us over the 10 Years". Entertainment Weekly (New York) ((1079/1080):74-84).
- ↑ "facebook.com – Quantcast Audience Profile". Quantcast.com. April 29, 2011. http://www.quantcast.com/facebook.com. Retrieved May 15, 2011.
- ↑ Wells, Roy (August 8, 2010). "41.6% of the U.S. Population has a Facebook account". Social Media Today. http://www.socialmediatoday.com/roywells1/158020/416-us-population-has-facebook-account. Retrieved January 6, 2011.
- ↑ "Is Facebook growth stalling in North America?". CNN. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/06/13/facebook.dropping.america/index.html. Retrieved 2011-06-21.
- ↑ "Facebook Privacy: 6 Years of Controversy [INFOGRAPHIC"]. mashable.com. http://mashable.com/2010/08/25/facebook-privacy-infographic/. Retrieved February 24, 2011.
[change] Other websites
