When Facebook Started
When Facebook Started
In February 2004 Mr Zuckerberg released "The facebook", as it was initially known; the name drawn from the sheets of paper distributed to freshers, profiling trainees as well as personnel. Within 24 Hr, 1,200 Harvard trainees had actually signed up, and after one month, over fifty percent of the undergraduate populace had an account.
The network was promptly extended to other Boston colleges, the Ivy Organization and also ultimately all US colleges. It ended up being Facebook.com in August 2005 after the address was acquired for $200,000. United States high schools can sign up from September 2005, then it started to spread worldwide, reaching UK colleges the following month.
As of September 2006, the network was expanded beyond educational institutions to anybody with a signed up e-mail address. The site stays free to sign up with, as well as earns a profit with advertising and marketing revenue. Yahoo and Google are amongst companies which have actually expressed interest in a buy-out, with rumoured figures of around $2bn (₤ 975m) being talked about. Mr Zuckerberg has until now chosen not to sell.
The site's functions have actually remained to develop throughout 2007. Customers can currently provide gifts to friends, message totally free classified advertisements and even create their very own applications - graffiti and Scrabble are especially popular.
This month the company revealed that the variety of registered users had gotten to 30 million, making it the largest social-networking site with an education focus.
Earlier in the year there were rumours that Royal prince William had actually signed up, but it was later disclosed to be a mere impostor. The MP David Miliband, the radio DJ Jo Whiley, the actor Orlando Flower, the artist Tracey Emin as well as the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, are among validated top-level participants.
This month officials banned a flash-mob-style water fight in Hyde Park, arranged via Facebook, as a result of public security worries. And also there was additionally controversy at Oxford as trainees became aware that college authorities were checking their Facebook accounts.
The legal situation against Facebook go back to September 2004, when Divya Narendra, and the brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who started the social-networking website ConnectU, charged Mr Zuckerberg of replicating their ideas and also coding. Mr Zuckerberg had worked as a computer programmer for them when they were all at Harvard before Facebook was developed.
The instance was rejected due to a formality in March 2007 yet without a ruling.