Facebook
Facebook is a social networking website that was originally designed for college students, but is now open to anyone 13 years of age or older. Facebook users can create and customize their own profiles with photos, videos, and information about themselves. Friends can browse the profiles of other friends and write messages on their pages.
Along with 200 million others, I too have a Facebook. Facebook not only allows you to connect with your friends but upload pictures and videos, write on each others walls and follow your favorite celebrities. Facebook is a way for people from all corners of the world to connect with each other and stay in touch. Whether your grandma lives in Poland or best friend lives in Florida, you can all stay in touch. Facebook recently has a fresh new look called “Timeline.” This now allows you to jump back a year, two or ten and see what you posted, shared or liked in those years. It allows your friends to see who you were with and what you were interested in doing. Many may recall the movies “The Network” where directors showed the story of how Facebook has began. Ever since the very beginning, speculators speculate as to how Mark Zuckerberg began the site. A week after the site was launched in 2004, three students came out and accused Zuckerberg of stealing their idea and running with it. This small allegation that came from the three Harvard students soon became a lawsuit. Even though there may be speculations as to how Facebook started, it is an everyday necessity to millions. There has recently been unfortunately many incidents where young teens have committed suicide due to cyber bullying. Lady Gaga has launched a foundation “Born This Way” to stop this ongoing problem.
Ten Fascinating Facts about Facebook
1. Facebook claims to have more than 800m active users: almost 13 times the population of the UK. Over half of those log in to the site every single day.
2. In March last year Facebook claimed it was deleting 20,000 profiles daily for infractions of its terms of service including inappropriate images, spam or suspected underage users (Facebook is only available to those who declare themselves to be over 13).
3. The average Facebook user has 130 friends and is connected to 80 community pages, groups or events.
4. There are more than 70 languages used on the website, and content was translated by 300,000 volunteer Facebook users using a specially created application.
5. More than 350m users access Facebook on mobile devices such as iPhones.
6. Facebook employs just over 3,000 staff at offices in Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, New York, Washington DC, Dublin, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Hyderabad, London, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Selangor, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney, Tokyo and Toronto.
7. Facebook received $500,000 of investment in 2004, $12.7m in 2005 and $27.5m in 2006.
8. In October 2008 the company announced that the 10 billionth user photograph was uploaded. More than 250m new photos are currently being added to the site each day.
9. Around 4bn items are shared on Facebook daily.
10. It is estimated that Facebook saw revenue of $4.3bn last year, mostly from advertising, and profit of $850m.
