Facebook is a popular, free-access social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves. The website’s name refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of a campus community that some US colleges and preparatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff as a way to get to know other people on campus.

Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook while he was a student at Harvard University. Website membership was initially limited to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Ivy League. It later expanded further to include any university student, then high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over. The website currently has more than 120 million active users worldwide.

Facebook has met with some controversy over the past few years. It has been blocked intermittently in several countries including Syria and Iran. It has also been banned at many places of work to increase productivity. Privacy has also been an issue, and it has been compromised several times. It is also facing several lawsuits from a number of Zuckerberg’s former classmates, who claim that Facebook had stolen their source code and other intellectual property.

Mark Zuckerberg founded “The Facebook”, originally located at thefacebook.com, on February 4, 2004 while attending Harvard University as a sophomore. The company dropped The from its name after purchasing the domain name facebook.com in 2005 for $200,000.

Membership was initially restricted to students of Harvard College, and within the first month, more than half the undergraduate population at Harvard were registered on the service. 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. This expansion continued when it opened to all Ivy League schools and gradually most universities in Canada and the United States. In June 2004, Facebook moved its base of operations to Palo Alto, California. In October 2008, Facebook announced that it was to set up its international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.

Facebook launched a high school version in September 2005, which Zuckerberg called the next logical step. At that time, high school networks required an invitation to join. Facebook later expanded membership eligibility to employees of several companies including Apple Inc. and Microsoft. Facebook was then opened to everyone of ages 13 and older with a valid e-mail address on September 26, 2006.

BusinessWeek has confirmed that Facebook, beginning in Autumn 2008, will allow its employees to sell stock at no more than a $3.75 billion valuation.

Other Information

• Founded  Cambridge, Massachusetts (February 4, 2004)
• Headquarters  Palo Alto, California, Dublin, Ireland (international headquarters for Europe, Africa, Middle East)
• Key people  Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Dustin Moskovitz, Co-founder, Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Matt Cohler, VP of Product Management, Chris Hughes, Co-founder
• Revenue  300 million USD (2008 est.)
• Net income  ▼ -50 million USD (2008 est.)
• Employees  700 (November 2008)
• Website  facebook.com

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