This article is about the social networking service. For the type of directory, see Face book.
Facebook, Inc.
Facebook Logo (2015) light.svg
Facebook user page (2014).jpg
Mark Zuckerberg's profile (viewed from the login page)
Type of business Public
Type of site
Social networking service
Available in Multilingual (140)
Traded as
NASDAQ: FB (Class A)
NASDAQ-100 Component
S&P 100 Component
S&P 500 Component
Founded February 4, 2004; 14 years ago
Headquarters Menlo Park, California, United States of America
Coordinates 37.4848°N 122.1484°WCoordinates: 37.4848°N 122.1484°W
Area served United States (2004–2005)
Worldwide, except blocking countries (2005–present)
Founder(s)
Mark Zuckerberg
Eduardo Saverin
Andrew McCollum
Dustin Moskovitz
Chris Hughes
Key people Mark Zuckerberg
(Chairman and CEO)
Sheryl Sandberg
(COO)
Industry Internet
Products Messenger
tbh
Watch
Revenue Increase US$40.653 billion (2017)[1]
Operating income Increase US$20.203 billion (2017)[1]
Net income Increase US$15.934 billion (2017)[1]
Total assets Increase US$84.524 billion (2017)[1]
Total equity Increase US$74.347 billion (2017)[1]
Employees 25,105 (December 31, 2017)[2]
Subsidiaries Instagram
WhatsApp
Oculus VR
Website www.facebook.com or
www.fb.com
Alexa rank Steady 3 (July 2018)[3]
Registration Required
Users Increase 2.2 billion monthly active users (January 2018)
Current status Active
Written in C++, PHP (as HHVM),[4] D[5]
Facebook is an American online social media and social networking service company based in Menlo Park, California. Its website was launched on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg, along with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.
The founders initially limited the website's membership to Harvard students. Later they expanded it to higher education institutions in the Boston area, the Ivy League schools, and Stanford University. Facebook gradually added support for students at various other universities, and eventually to high school students. Since 2006, anyone who claims to be at least 13 years old has been allowed to become a registered user of Facebook, though variations exist in this requirement, depending on local laws. The name comes from the face book directories often given to American university students. Facebook held its initial public offering (IPO) in February 2012, valuing the company at $104 billion, the largest valuation to date for a newly listed public company. It began selling stock to the public three months later. Facebook makes most of its revenue from advertisements that appear onscreen.
Facebook can be accessed from a large range of devices with Internet connectivity, such as desktop computers, laptops and tablet computers, and smartphones. After registering, users can create a customized profile indicating their name, occupation, schools attended and so on. Users can add other users as "friends", exchange messages, post status updates, share photos, videos and links, use various software applications ("apps"), and receive notifications of other users' activity. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups organized by workplace, school, hobbies or other topics, and categorize their friends into lists such as "People From Work" or "Close Friends". Additionally, users can report or block unpleasant people.
Facebook has more than 2.2 billion monthly active users as of January 2018. Its popularity has led to prominent media coverage for the company, including significant scrutiny over privacy and the psychological effects it has on users. In recent years, the company has faced intense pressure over the amount of fake news, hate speech and depictions of violence prevalent on its services, all of which it is attempting
003–2006: Thefacebook, Thiel investment, and name change
Zuckerberg wrote a program called "Facemash" in 2003 while attending Harvard University as a sophomore (second year student). 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".[6] Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours online.[7] The Facemash site was quickly forwarded to several campus group list-servers, but was shut down a few days later by the Harvard administration. Zuckerberg faced expulsion and was charged by the administration with breach of security, violating copyrights, and violating individual privacy. Ultimately, the charges were dropped.[6] Zuckerberg expanded on this initial project that semester by creating a social study tool ahead of an art history final exam. He uploaded all art images to a website, each of which was featured with a corresponding comments section, then shared the site with his classmates, and people started sharing notes.[8]
Original layout and name of Thefacebook, 2004
A "face book" is a student directory featuring photos and basic information.[7] In 2003, there were no universal online facebooks at Harvard, with only paper sheets distributed[9] and private online directories.[6][10] Zuckerberg told the Crimson that "Everyone’s been talking a lot about a universal face book within Harvard. [...] I think it’s kind of silly that it would take the University a couple of years to get around to it. I can do it better than they can, and I can do it in a week."[10] In January 2004, Zuckerberg began writing code for a new website, known as "TheFacebook", with the inspiration coming from an editorial in the Crimson about Facemash, stating that "It is clear that the technology needed to create a centralized Website is readily available ... the benefits are many."[11] On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "TheFacebook", originally located at thefacebook.com.[12]
Six days after the site launched, Harvard seniors Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra accused Zuckerberg of intentionally misleading them into believing that he would help them build a social network called HarvardConnection.com. They claimed that he was instead using their ideas to build a competing product.[13] The three complained to The Harvard Crimson and the newspaper began an investigation. They later filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, subsequently settling in 2008[14] for 1.2 million shares (worth $300 million at Facebook's IPO).[15]
Membership was initially restricted to students of Harvard College; within the first month, more than half the undergraduates at Harvard were registered on the service.[16] Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew McCollum, and Chris Hughes joined Zuckerberg to help manage the growth of the website.[17] In March 2004, Facebook expanded to the universities of Columbia, Stanford, and Yale.[18] It later opened to all Ivy League colleges, Boston University, New York University, MIT, Washington and gradually most universities in the United States and Canada.[19][20]
In mid-2004, entrepreneur Sean Parker—an informal advisor to Zuckerberg—became the company's president.[21] In June 2004, Facebook moved its operations base to Palo Alto, California.[22] It received its first investment later that month from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.[23] In 2005, the company dropped "the" from its name after purchasing the domain name facebook.com for US$200,000.[24] The domain facebook.com belonged to AboutFace Corporation before the purchase. This website last appeared on April 8, 2005;[25] from April 10, 2005, to August 4, 2005, this domain gave a 403 error.[26]
Mark Zuckerberg, co-creator of Facebook, in his Harvard dorm room, 2005
In May 2005, Accel Partners invested $12.7 million in Facebook, and Jim Breyer[27] added $1 million of his own money. A high-school version of the site was launched in September 2005, which Zuckerberg called the next logical step.[28] (At the time, high-school networks required an invitation to join.)[29] Facebook also expanded membership eligibility to employees of several companies, including Apple Inc. and Microsoft.[30]
2006–2012: Public access, Microsoft alliance and rapid growth
On September 26, 2006, Facebook was opened to everyone at least 13 years old with a valid email address.[31][32][33] In late 2007, Facebook had 100,000 business pages (pages which allowed companies to promote themselves and attract customers). These started as group pages, but a new concept called company pages was planned.[34] Pages began rolling out for businesses in May 2009.[35] 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. Microsoft's purchase included rights to place international advertisements on the social networking site.[36][37]
In October 2008, Facebook announced that it would set up its international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.[38] Almost a year later, in September 2009, Facebook said that it had turned cash flow positive for the first time.[39] A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly active users.[40] 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?"[41]
Traffic to Facebook increased steadily after 2009. The company announced 500 million users in July 2010,[42] and according to its data, half of the site's membership used Facebook daily, for an average of 34 minutes, while 150 million users accessed the site by mobile. A company representative called the milestone a "quiet revolution."[43] In November 2010, based on SecondMarket Inc. (an exchange for privately held companies' shares), Facebook's value was $41 billion. The company had slightly surpassed eBay to become the third largest American web company after Google and Amazon.com.
In early 2011, Facebook announced plans to move its headquarters to the former Sun Microsystems campus in Menlo Park, California.[46][47] In March 2011, it was reported that Facebook was removing about 20,000 profiles every day for violations such as spam, graphic content, and underage use, as part of its efforts to boost cyber security.[48] Statistics by DoubleClick showed that Facebook reached one trillion page views in the month of June 2011, making it the most visited website tracked by DoubleClick. According to a Nielsen study, Facebook had in 2011 become the second-most accessed website in the U.S. behind Google.
