Facebook

Facebook
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This article is about the website. For the collection of photographs of people after which it is named, see Facebook (directory).
Page semi-protected
Facebook, Inc. Facebook.svg
Type Private
Founded Cambridge, Massachusetts[1] (2004)
Founder

Mark Zuckerberg
Eduardo Saverin
Dustin Moskovitz
Chris Hughes

Headquarters Palo Alto, California, U.S., will be moved to Menlo Park, California, U.S. in June 2011
Area served Worldwide
Key people

Mark Zuckerberg (CEO)
Chris Cox (VP of Product)
Sheryl Sandberg (COO)
Donald E. Graham (Chairman)

Revenue increase US$2 billion (2010 est.)[2]
Net income N/A
Employees 2000+ (2011)[3]
Website facebook.com
IPv6 support www.v6.facebook.com
Alexa rank steady 2 (May 2011)[4]
Type of site Social networking service
Advertising Banner ads, referral marketing, casual games
Registration Required
Users 600 million[5][6] (active in January 2011)
Available in Multilingual
Launched February 4, 2004
Current status Active
Screenshot[show]

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc.[1] As of January 2011, Facebook has more than 600 million active users.[5][6] Users may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics. The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other better. Facebook allows any users who declare themselves to be at least 13 years old to become registered users of the website.

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow computer science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.[7] The website's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over, but based on ConsumersReports.org on May 2011, there are 7.5 million children under 13 with accounts, violating the site's terms.[8]

A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace.[9] 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?"[10] Quantcast estimates Facebook has 138.9 million monthly unique U.S. visitors in May 2011.[11] According to Social Media Today, in April 2010 an estimated 41.6% of the U.S. population had a Facebook account.[12]
Contents
[hide]

1 History
2 Company
2.1 Ownership
2.2 Management
2.3 Revenue
2.4 Mergers and acquisitions
2.5 Operations
3 Website
4 Reception
5 Privacy
6 Criticism
7 Media impact
8 Social impact
9 Political impact
10 Media
11 See also
12 Notes
13 References
14 Further reading
15 External links

History
Main articles: History of Facebook and Timeline of Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg wrote Facemash, the predecessor to Facebook, on October 28, 2003, while attending Harvard as a sophomore. 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".[13][14]
Mark Zuckerberg co-created Facebook in his Harvard dorm room.

To accomplish this, Zuckerberg hacked into the protected areas of Harvard's computer network and copied the houses' private dormitory ID images. Harvard at that time did not have a student "facebook" (a directory with photos and basic information). Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours online.[13][15]

The site was quickly forwarded to several campus group list-servers, but was shut down a few days later by the Harvard administration. Zuckerberg was charged by the administration with breach of security, violating copyrights, and violating individual privacy, and faced expulsion. Ultimately, however, the charges were dropped.[16] Zuckerberg expanded on this initial project that semester by creating a social study tool ahead of an art history final, by uploading 500 Augustan images to a website, with one image per page along with a comment section.[15] He opened the site up to his classmates, and people started sharing their notes.

The following semester, Zuckerberg began writing code for a new website in January 2004. He was inspired, he said, by an editorial in The Harvard Crimson about the Facemash incident.[17] On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook", originally located at thefacebook.com.[18]

Six days after the site launched, three Harvard seniors, Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra, accused Zuckerberg of intentionally misleading them into believing he would help them build a social network called HarvardConnection.com, while he was instead using their ideas to build a competing product.[19] The three complained to the Harvard Crimson, and the newspaper began an investigation. The three later filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, subsequently settling.[20]

Membership was initially restricted to students of Harvard College, and within the first month, more than half the undergraduate population at Harvard was registered on the service.[21] 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.[22] It soon opened to the other Ivy League schools, Boston University, New York University, MIT, and gradually most universities in Canada and the United States.[23][24]

Facebook incorporated in the summer of 2004, and the entrepreneur Sean Parker, who had been informally advising Zuckerberg, became the company's president.[25] In June 2004, Facebook moved its base of operations to Palo Alto, California.[22] It received its first investment later that month from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.[26] The company dropped The from its name after purchasing the domain name facebook.com in 2005 for $200,000.[27]
Total active users[N 1] Date↓ Users
(in millions)↓ Days later↓ Monthly growth[N 2]↓
August 26, 2008 100[28] 1,665 178.38%
April 8, 2009 200[29] 225 13.33%
September 15, 2009 300[30] 150 10%
February 5, 2010 400[31] 143 6.99%
July 21, 2010 500[32] 166 4.52%
January 5, 2011 600[33][N 3] 168 3.57%

Facebook launched a high-school version in September 2005, which Zuckerberg called the next logical step.[34] At that time, high-school networks required an invitation to join.[35] Facebook later expanded membership eligibility to employees of several companies, including Apple Inc. and Microsoft.[36] Facebook was then opened on September 26, 2006, to everyone of age 13 and older with a valid email address.[37][38]

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.[39] Microsoft's purchase included rights to place international ads on Facebook.[40] In October 2008, Facebook announced that it would set up its international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.[41] In September 2009, Facebook said that it had turned cash-flow positive for the first time.[42] In November 2010, based on SecondMarket Inc., an exchange for shares of privately held companies, Facebook's value was $41 billion (slightly surpassing eBay's) and it became the third largest US web company after Google and Amazon.[43] Facebook has been identified as a possible candidate for an IPO by 2013.[44]

Traffic to Facebook increased steadily after 2009. More people visited Facebook than Google for the week ending March 13, 2010.[45]

In March 2011 it was reported that Facebook removes approximately 20,000 profiles from the site every day for various infractions, including spam, inappropriate content and underage use, as part of its efforts to boost cyber security.[46]

In early 2011, Facebook announced plans to move to its new headquarters, the former Sun Microsystems campus in Menlo Park, California.[47][48]
Company
Entrance to Facebook's current headquarters in the Stanford Research Park, Palo Alto, California.
Ownership

Mark Zuckerberg owns 24% of the company, Accel Partners owns 10%, Digital Sky Technologies owns 10%,[49] Dustin Moskovitz owns 6%, Eduardo Saverin owns 5%, Sean Parker owns 4%, Peter Thiel owns 3%, Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital Partners own between 1 to 2% each, Microsoft owns 1.3%, Li Ka-shing owns 0.75%, the Interpublic Group owns less than 0.5%, a small group of current and former employees and celebrities own less than 1% each, including Matt Cohler, Jeff Rothschild, Adam D'Angelo, Chris Hughes, and Owen Van Natta, while Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus have sizable holdings of the company, and the remaining 30% or so are owned by employees, an undisclosed number of celebrities, and outside investors.[50] Adam D'Angelo, chief technology officer and friend of Zuckerberg, resigned in May 2008. Reports claimed that he and Zuckerberg began quarreling, and that he was no longer interested in partial ownership of the company.[51]
Management

Key management personnel comprise Chris Cox (VP of Product), Sheryl Sandberg (COO), and Donald E. Graham (Chairman). As of April 2011, Facebook has over 2,000 employees, and offices in 15 countries.[52]
Revenue

Most of Facebook's revenue comes from advertising. Microsoft is Facebook's exclusive partner for serving banner advertising,[53] and therefore Facebook serves only advertisements that exist in Microsoft's advertisement inventory.
Revenues
(estimated, in millions US$) Year↓ Revenue↓ Growth↓
2006 $52[54] —
2007 $150[55] 188%
2008 $280[56] 87%
2009 $775[57] 177%
2010 $2,000[2] 158%

Facebook generally has a lower clickthrough rate (CTR) for advertisements than most major websites. Banner advertisements on Facebook have generally received one-fifth the number of clicks compared to those on the Web as a whole.[58] This means that a smaller percentage of Facebook's users click on advertisements than many other large websites. For example, while Google users click on the first advertisement for search results an average of 8% of the time (80,000 clicks for every one million searches),[59] Facebook's users click on advertisements an average of 0.04% of the time (400 clicks for every one million pages).[60]

Sarah Smith, who was Facebook's Online Sales Operations Manager, confirmed that successful advertising campaigns can have clickthrough rates as low as 0.05% to 0.04%, and that CTR for ads tend to fall within two weeks.[61] Competing social network MySpace's CTR, in comparison, is about 0.1%, 2.5 times better than Facebook's but still low compared to many other websites. Explanations for Facebook's low CTR include the fact that Facebook's users are more technologically savvy and therefore use ad blocking software to hide advertisements, that users are younger and therefore better at ignoring advertising messages, and that MySpace users spend more time browsing through content, while Facebook users spend their time communicating with friends and therefore have their attention diverted away from advertisements.[62]

On pages for brands and products, however, some companies have reported CTR as high as 6.49% for Wall posts.[63] Involver, a social marketing platform, announced in July 2008 that it managed to attain a CTR of 0.7% on Facebook (over 10 times the typical CTR for Facebook ad campaigns) for its first client, Serena Software, managing to convert 1.1 million views into 8,000 visitors to their website.[64] A study found that, for video advertisements on Facebook, over 40% of users who viewed the videos viewed the entire video, while the industry average was 25% for in-banner video ads.[65]
Mergers and acquisitions
Main article: List of acquisitions by Facebook

On November 15, 2010, Facebook announced it had acquired FB.com from the American Farm Bureau Federation for an undisclosed amount. On January 11, 2011, the Farm Bureau disclosed $8.5 million in "domain sales income", making the acquisition of FB.com one of the ten highest domain sales in history.[66]
Operations

A custom-built data center with substantially reduced ("38% less") power consumption compared to existing Facebook data centers opened in April 2011 in Prineville, Oregon.[67]
Website
Main articles: Facebook features and Facebook Platform
Facebook's homepage features a login form on the top right for existing users, and a registration form directly underneath for new visitors.

Users can create profiles with photos, lists of personal interests, contact information, and other personal information. Users can communicate with friends and other users through private or public messages and a chat feature. They can also create and join interest groups and "like pages" (called "fan pages" until April 19, 2010), some of which are maintained by organizations as a means of advertising.[68]

To allay concerns about privacy, Facebook enables users to choose their own privacy settings and choose who can see specific parts of their profile.[69] The website is free to users, and generates revenue from advertising, such as banner ads.[70] Facebook requires a user's name and profile picture (if applicable) to be accessible by everyone. Users can control who sees other information they have shared, as well as who can find them in searches, through their privacy settings.[71]
Profile shown on Facebook in 2011.

The media often compare Facebook to MySpace, but one significant difference between the two websites is the level of customization.[72] Another difference is Facebook's requirement that users give their true identity, a demand that MySpace does not make.[73] MySpace allows users to decorate their profiles using HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), while Facebook allows only plain text.[74] Facebook has a number of features with which users may interact. They include the Wall, a space on every user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see;[75] Pokes, which allows users to send a virtual "poke" to each other (a notification then tells a user that they have been poked);[76] Photos, where users can upload albums and photos;[77] and Status, which allows users to inform their friends of their whereabouts and actions.[78] Depending on privacy settings, anyone who can see a user's profile can also view that user's Wall. In July 2007, Facebook began allowing users to post attachments to the Wall, whereas the Wall was previously limited to textual content only.[75]
Facebook mobile graphical user interface

On September 6, 2006, a News Feed was announced, which appears on every user's homepage and highlights information including profile changes, upcoming events, and birthdays of the user's friends.[79] This enabled spammers and other users to manipulate these features by creating illegitimate events or posting fake birthdays to attract attention to their profile or cause.[80] Initially, the News Feed caused dissatisfaction among Facebook users; some complained it was too cluttered and full of undesired information, others were concerned that it made it too easy for others to track individual activities (such as relationship status changes, events, and conversations with other users).[81]

In response, Zuckerberg issued an apology for the site's failure to include appropriate customizable privacy features. Since then, users have been able to control what types of information are shared automatically with friends. Users are now able to prevent user-set categories of friends from seeing updates about certain types of activities, including profile changes, Wall posts, and newly added friends.[82]

On February 23, 2010, Facebook was granted a patent[83] on certain aspects of its News Feed. The patent covers News Feeds in which links are provided so that one user can participate in the same activity of another user.[84] The patent may encourage Facebook to pursue action against websites that violate its patent, which may potentially include websites such as Twitter.[85]

One of the most popular applications on Facebook is the Photos application, where users can upload albums and photos.[86] Facebook allows users to upload an unlimited number of photos, compared with other image hosting services such as Photobucket and Flickr, which apply limits to the number of photos that a user is allowed to upload. During the first years, Facebook users were limited to 60 photos per album. As of May 2009, this limit has been increased to 200 photos per album.[87][88][89][90]

Privacy settings can be set for individual albums, limiting the groups of users that can see an album. For example, the privacy of an album can be set so that only the user's friends can see the album, while the privacy of another album can be set so that all Facebook users can see it. Another feature of the Photos application is the ability to "tag," or label, users in a photo. For instance, if a photo contains a user's friend, then the user can tag the friend in the photo. This sends a notification to the friend that they have been tagged, and provides them a link to see the photo.[91]
Profile shown on Thefacebook in 2005
Facebook profile shown in 2007

Facebook Notes was introduced on August 22, 2006, a blogging feature that allowed tags and embeddable images. Users were later able to import blogs from Xanga, LiveJournal, Blogger, and other blogging services.[37] During the week of April 7, 2008, Facebook released a Comet-based[92] instant messaging application called "Chat" to several networks,[93] which allows users to communicate with friends and is similar in functionality to desktop-based instant messengers.

Facebook launched Gifts on February 8, 2007, which allows users to send virtual gifts to their friends that appear on the recipient's profile. Gifts cost $1.00 each to purchase, and a personalized message can be attached to each gift.[94][95] On May 14, 2007, Facebook launched Marketplace, which lets users post free classified ads.[96] Marketplace has been compared to Craigslist by CNET, which points out that the major difference between the two is that listings posted by a user on Marketplace are seen only by users in the same network as that user, whereas listings posted on Craigslist can be seen by anyone.[97]

On July 20, 2008, Facebook introduced "Facebook Beta", a significant redesign of its user interface on selected networks. The Mini-Feed and Wall were consolidated, profiles were separated into tabbed sections, and an effort was made to create a "cleaner" look.[98] After initially giving users a choice to switch, Facebook began migrating all users to the new version beginning in September 2008.[99] On December 11, 2008, it was announced that Facebook was testing a simpler signup process.[100]

On June 13, 2009, Facebook introduced a "Usernames" feature, whereby pages can be linked with simpler URLs such as http://www.facebook.com/facebook as opposed to http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=20531316728.[101] Many new smartphones offer access to Facebook services through either their web-browsers or applications. An official Facebook application is available for the iPhone OS, the Android OS, and the WebOS. Nokia and Research In Motion both provide Facebook applications for their own mobile devices. More than 150 million active users access Facebook through mobile devices across 200 mobile operators in 60 countries.

On November 15, 2010, Facebook announced a new "Facebook Messages" service. In a media event that day, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, "It's true that people will be able to have an @facebook.com email addresses, but it's not email." The launch of such a feature had been anticipated for some time before the announcement, with some calling it a "Gmail killer." The system, to be available to all of the website's users, combines text messaging, instant messaging, emails, and regular messages, and will include privacy settings similar to those of other Facebook services. Codenamed "Project Titan," Facebook Messages took 15 months to develop.[102][103]

In February 2011, Facebook began to use the hCalendar microformat to mark up events, and the hCard microformat for the events' venues, enabling the extraction of details to users' own calendar or mapping applications.[104]

Since April 2011 Facebook users have had the ability to make live voice calls via Facebook Chat, allowing users to chat with others from all over the world. This feature, which is provided free through T-Mobile's new Bobsled service, lets the user add voice to the current Facebook Chat as well as leave voice messages on Facebook.[105]
Reception

According to comScore, Facebook is the leading social networking site based on monthly unique visitors, having overtaken main competitor MySpace in April 2008.[106] ComScore reports that Facebook attracted 130 million unique visitors in May 2010, an increase of 8.6 million people.[107] According to Alexa, the website's ranking among all websites increased from 60th to 7th in worldwide traffic, from September 2006 to September 2007, and is currently 2nd.[108] Quantcast ranks the website 2nd in the U.S. in traffic,[109] and Compete.com ranks it 2nd in the U.S.[110] The website is the most popular for uploading photos, with 50 billion uploaded cumulatively.[111] In 2010, Sophos's "Security Threat Report 2010" polled over 500 firms, 60% of which responded that they believed that Facebook was the social network that posed the biggest threat to security, well ahead of MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn.[112]

Facebook is the most popular social networking site in several English-speaking countries, including Canada,[113] the United Kingdom,[114] and the United States.[115][116][117][118] In regional Internet markets, Facebook penetration is highest in North America (69 percent), followed by Middle East-Africa (67 percent), Latin America (58 percent), Europe (57 percent), and Asia-Pacific (17 percent).[119]

The website has won awards such as placement into the "Top 100 Classic Websites" by PC Magazine in 2007,[120] and winning the "People's Voice Award" from the Webby Awards in 2008.[121] In a 2006 study conducted by Student Monitor, a New Jersey-based company specializing in research concerning the college student market, Facebook was named the second most popular thing among undergraduates, tied with beer and only ranked lower than the iPod.[122]

On March 2010, Judge Richard Seeborg issued an order approving the class settlement in Lane v. Facebook, Inc., the class action lawsuit arising out of Facebook's Beacon program.

In 2010, Facebook won the Crunchie "Best Overall Startup Or Product" for the third year in a row[123] and was recognized as one of the "Hottest Silicon Valley Companies" by Lead411.[124] However, in a July 2010 survey performed by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, Facebook received a score of 64 out of 100, placing it in the bottom 5% of all private-sector companies in terms of customer satisfaction, alongside industries such as the IRS e-file system, airlines, and cable companies. The reasons why Facebook scored so poorly include privacy problems, frequent changes to the website's interface, the results returned by the News Feed, and spam.[125]

In December 2008, the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory ruled that Facebook is a valid protocol to serve court notices to defendants. It is believed to be the world's first legal judgement that defines a summons posted on Facebook as legally binding.[126] In March 2009, the New Zealand High Court associate justice David Glendall allowed for the serving of legal papers on Craig Axe by the company Axe Market Garden via Facebook.[127][128] Employers (such as Virgin Atlantic Airways) have also used Facebook as a means to keep tabs on their employees and have even been known to fire them over posts they have made.[129]

By 2005, the use of Facebook had already become so ubiquitous that the generic verb "facebooking" had come into use to describe the process of browsing others' profiles or updating one's own.[130] In 2008, Collins English Dictionary declared "Facebook" as its new Word of the Year.[131] In December 2009, the New Oxford American Dictionary declared its word of the year to be the verb "unfriend", defined as "To remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook. As in, 'I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a fight.'"[132]

In April 2010, according to The New York Times, countries with the most Facebook users were the United States, the United Kingdom and Indonesia.[133] Indonesia has become the country with the second largest number of Facebook users, after the United States, with 24 million users, or 10% of Indonesia's population.[134] Also in early 2010, Openbook was established, an avowed parody (and privacy advocacy) website[135] that enables text-based searches of those Wall posts that are available to "Everyone", i.e. to everyone on the Internet.

Writers for The Wall Street Journal found in 2010 that Facebook apps were transmitting identifying information to "dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies". The apps used an HTTP referrer which exposed the user's identity and sometimes their friends'. Facebook said, "We have taken immediate action to disable all applications that violate our terms".[136]
Privacy

According to comScore, an internet marketing research company, Facebook collects as much data from its visitors as Google and Microsoft, but considerably less than Yahoo!.[137] In 2010, the security team began expanding its efforts to reduce the risks to users' privacy.[112] On November 6, 2007, Facebook launched Facebook Beacon, which was an ultimately failed attempt to advertise to friends of users using the knowledge of what purchases friends made.
Criticism
Main article: Criticism of Facebook

Facebook has met with controversies. It has been blocked intermittently in several countries including the People's Republic of China,[138] Vietnam,[139] Iran,[140] Uzbekistan,[141] Pakistan,[142] Syria,[143] and Bangladesh on different bases. For example, it was banned in many countries of the world on the basis of allowed content judged as anti-Islamic and containing religious discrimination. It has also been banned at many workplaces to prevent employees wasting their time on the site.[144] The privacy of Facebook users has also been an issue, and the safety of user accounts has been compromised several times. Facebook has settled a lawsuit regarding claims over source code and intellectual property.[145] In May 2011 emails were sent to journalists and bloggers making critical allegations about Google's privacy policies; however it was later discovered that the anti-Google campaign, conducted by PR giant Burson-Marsteller, was paid for by Facebook in what CNN referred to as "a new level skullduggery" and which Daily Beast called a "clumsy smear."[146]
Media impact

In April 2011, Facebook launched a new portal for marketers and creative agencies to help them develop brand promotions on Facebook.[147] The company began its push by inviting a select group of British advertising leaders to meet Facebook's top executives at an "influencers' summit" in February 2010. Facebook has now been involved in campaigns for True Blood, American Idol, and Top Gear.[148]
Social impact

Facebook has affected the social life and activity of people in various ways. It can reunite lost family members and friends. One such reunion was between John Watson and the daughter he had been searching for 20 years. They met after Watson found her facebook profile.[149] Another father-daughter reunion was between Tony Macnauton and Frances Simpson who had not seen each other for nearly 48 years.[150]

Some studies have named Facebook as a source of problems in relationships. Several news stories have suggested that using Facebook causes divorce and infidelity, but the claims have been questioned and refuted by other commentators.[151][152]
Political impact
The stage at the Facebook – Saint Anselm College debates in 2008.
Wikinews has related news: Egyptian man names daughter 'Facebook'

Facebook's role in the American political process was demonstrated in January 2008, shortly before the New Hampshire primary, when Facebook teamed up with ABC and Saint Anselm College to allow users to give live feedback about the "back to back" January 5 Republican and Democratic debates.[153][154][155] Charles Gibson moderated both debates, held at the Dana Center for the Humanities at Saint Anselm College. Facebook users took part in debate groups organized around specific topics, register to vote, and message questions.[156]

Over 1,000,000 people installed the Facebook application 'US politics' in order to take part, and the application measured users' responses to specific comments made by the debating candidates.[157] This debate showed the broader community what many young students had already experienced: Facebook was an extremely popular and powerful new way to interact and voice opinions. An article by Michelle Sullivan of Uwire.com illustrates how the "facebook effect" has affected youth voting rates, support by youth of political candidates, and general involvement by the youth population in the 2008 election.[158]

In February 2008, a Facebook group called "One Million Voices Against FARC" organized an event in which hundreds of thousands of Colombians marched in protest against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as the FARC (from the group's Spanish name).[159] In August 2010, one of North Korea's official government websites and the official news agency of the country, Uriminzokkiri, joined Facebook.[160]

In 2010 an English director of public health, whose staff was researching Syphilis, linked and attributed a rise in Syphilis cases in areas of Britain to Facebook. The reports of this research were rebuked by Facebook as "ignoring the difference between correlation and causation."[161]
Media
Wikinews has news involving Facebook:

Bloggers investigate social networking websites
News services and World Wide Web companies increase Persian language services after Iranian presidential election

At age 102, Ivy Bean of Bradford, England joined Facebook in 2008, making her one of the oldest people ever on Facebook. An inspiration to other residents of the care home in which she lived,[162] she quickly became more widely known and several fan pages were made in her honor. She visited Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife, Sarah, in Downing Street early in 2010.[163] Some time after creating her Facebook page, Bean also joined Twitter, when she passed the maximum number of friends allowed by Facebook. She became the oldest person to ever use the Twitter website. At the time of her death in July 2010, she had 4,962 friends on Facebook and more than 56,000 followers on Twitter. Her death was widely reported in the media and she received tributes from several notable media personalities.[164]
"FriendFace", a December 2008 episode of the British sitcom, The IT Crowd, parodied Facebook and social networking sites in general.[165]
American author Ben Mezrich published a book in July 2009 about Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook, titled The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal.[166]
In response to the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day controversy and the ban of the website in Pakistan, an Islamic version of the website was created, called MillatFacebook.[167]
"You Have 0 Friends", an April 2010 episode of the American animated comedy series, South Park, parodied Facebook.[168]
The Social Network, a drama film directed by David Fincher about the founding of Facebook, was released October 1, 2010.[169] The film features an ensemble cast consisting of Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin, Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, and Armie Hammer as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. The film was written by Aaron Sorkin and adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book. The film was distributed by Columbia Pictures. No staff members of Facebook, including Zuckerberg, were involved with the project. However, one of Facebook's co-founders, Eduardo Saverin, was a consultant for Mezrich's book. Mark Zuckerberg has said that The Social Network is inaccurate.[170]
On February 22, 2011, an Egyptian baby was named "Facebook" to commemorate the vital role Facebook and other social media played in Egypt's revolution.[171]
On May 16, 2011, an Israeli couple named their daughter after the Facebook "like" feature. They explained that it wasn't to advertise for Facebook, but because they fancied the meaning behind the word.[172][173]

See also
San Francisco Bay Area portal
Companies portal
Internet portal

Ambient awareness
Facebook stalking
List of social networking websites
List of virtual communities with more than 100 million users
Social media
Facebook users

Notes

^ "Total active users" is defined by Facebook as a user who has visited the website in the last 30 days.
^ "Monthly growth" is the average percentage growth rate at which the total number of active users grows each month over the specified period.
^ This value is from an investment document. The date is from when the document was revealed to the public, not the actual date that the website reached this many users.

References

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Further reading

Kirkpatrick, David, "Why Facebook matters: It's not just for arranging dates. And it's not just another social network. Facebook offers sophisticated tools for maintaining social relationships", Fortune magazine, October 6, 2006

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Business > Companies > Facebook, Inc.
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Facebook
Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press, Via Associated Press

Updated: May 12, 2011

Facebook, the world's largest social network, announced in July 2010 that it had 500 million users around the world. The company has grown at a meteoric pace, doubling in size since 2009 and pushing international competitors aside. Its policies, more than those of any other company, are helping to define standards for privacy in the Internet age.

The company, founded in 2004 by a Harvard sophomore, Mark Zuckerberg, began life catering first to Harvard students and then to all high school and college students. It has since evolved into a broadly popular online destination used by both teenagers and adults of all ages. In country after country, Facebook is cementing itself as the leader and often displacing other social networks, much as it outflanked MySpace in the United States.

But it has also come to be seen as one of the new titans of the Internet, challenging even Google with a vision of a Web tied together through personal relationships and recommendations, rather than by search algorithms. In a major expansion, Facebook has spread itself across other Web sites by offering members the chance to "Like'' something — share it with their network — without leaving the Web page they're on.

In November 2010, Mr. Zuckerberg introduced Facebook Messages, a new unified messaging system that allows people to communicate with one another on the Web and on mobile phones regardless of whether they are using e-mail, text messages or online chat services.

The company raised $500 million from Goldman Sachs and a Russian investor in January 2011 in a deal that values the company at $50 billion — more than companies like eBay, Yahoo and Time Warner. The stake by Goldman Sachs, considered one of Wall Street’s savviest investors, signals the increasing might of Facebook, which has already been bearing down on giants like Google.

Facebook has increasingly been seen as the only company to pose a threat to Google, which has used its dominant position in search and online ad placement to expand into most corners of the Web. But as a closed network, Facebook's oceans of content are out of the reach of Google's search engines, and some analysts think the personal recommendations made through Facebook networks could become a rival to the algorithm-based results pioneered by Google.

In one sign of how much Facebook regards Google as a competitor, The Daily Beast reported that in May 2011 Facebook had hired a public relations firm to persuade reporters and privacy advocates to write stories critical of a new Google service, Social Circles.

Privacy is a sore subject for Facebook, which has made a series of stumbles on the subject. With the potential for legal and regulatory clashes growing along with its influence, the company has layered its executive, legal, policy and communications ranks with high-powered politicos from both parties, beefing up its firepower for future battles in Washington and beyond.

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Facebook Taps Joel Kaplan to Head Washington Office
By EVELYN M. RUSLI and PETER LATTMAN

The move is a coup for Facebook, which is trying to increase its influence in the capital, and a setback for the private-equity-owned Energy Future Holdings.
May 26, 2011
MORE ON FACEBOOK AND: Washington (DC), Facebook.com, Burr, Richard M, Bush, George W, Kaplan, Joel D, Luttig, J Michael, Sandberg, Sheryl, Scalia, Antonin, Ullyot, Ted

Finding the Next Mark Zuckerberg
By EVELYN M. RUSLI

Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist, announced the fellows for his nonprofit initiative, which gives students $100,000 to drop out of college and pursue their interests.
May 25, 2011
MORE ON FACEBOOK AND: Computers and the Internet, Mount Kilimanjaro (Tanzania), Facebook.com, Harvard University, Stanford University, Zuckerberg, Mark E

Consider Profits When Assessing I.P.O.’s
By ROBERT CYRAN and CHRISTOPHER SWANN

Across the board, valuations seem to be pinned on every company becoming a Google in its market, but there are relatively few consistent winners.
May 24, 2011
MORE ON FACEBOOK AND: OIL (PETROLEUM) AND GASOLINE, COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET, INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERINGS, SOCIAL NETWORKING (INTERNET), CONOCOPHILLIPS, TWITTER, EL PASO CORP, YANDEX

Army Seeks Recruits Via Social Media - Advertising
By STUART ELLIOTT

The United States Army is branching out into Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube with its “Army Strong” promotion to attract recruits.
May 24, 2011
MORE ON FACEBOOK AND: UNITED STATES DEFENSE AND MILITARY FORCES, DRAFT AND RECRUITMENT (MILITARY), SOCIAL NETWORKING (INTERNET), YOUTUBE.COM, TWITTER, FLICKR, UNITED STATES ARMY

Syria Cracks Down on Social Media
By JENNIFER PRESTON

The government is sharply limiting the ability of dissidents to communicate and upload videos of protests, according to several activists in Syria.
May 22, 2011
MORE ON FACEBOOK AND: DEMONSTRATIONS, PROTESTS, AND RIOTS, MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA UNREST (2010- ), SOCIAL NETWORKING (INTERNET), SYRIA, YOUTUBE.COM, TWITTER, ASSAD, BASHAR AL-

Valuing LinkedIn and Social Networking
By DEALBOOK

How LinkedIn compares to other big Internet names like Facebook and Google.
May 20, 2011
MORE ON FACEBOOK AND: Social Networking (Internet), Facebook.com, Google Inc, LinkedIn, New York Stock Exchange

LinkedIn's Surge Sets Stage for More Internet I.P.O.'s
By EVELYN M. RUSLI

LinkedIn's stock more than doubled, raising expectations that other offerings for companies like Facebook and Groupon will also do well.
May 20, 2011
MORE ON FACEBOOK AND: Initial Public Offerings, Social Networking (Internet), Facebook.com, Groupon, LinkedIn

Does Facebook Help or Hinder Offline Friendships?
By JENNA WORTHAM

Are social networks like Facebook and Twitter enhancing our real-world relationships? Or causing them to decay?
May 19, 2011
MORE ON FACEBOOK AND: Computers and the Internet, Social Networking (Internet), Facebook.com

Facebook Tributes, R.I.P.: Social Q’s
Facebook Tributes, R.I.P.: Social Q’s
By PHILIP GALANES

Trending now on social media: how to deal with dead Facebook friends.
May 19, 2011
MORE ON FACEBOOK AND: CUSTOMS, ETIQUETTE AND MANNERS, DEATH AND DYING, SOCIAL NETWORKING (INTERNET)

Facebook Devalues Birthday Greetings: Noticed
Facebook Devalues Birthday Greetings: Noticed
By AIMEE LEE BALL

Facebook makes it easy to remember birthdays, but does it count as much now?
May 19, 2011
MORE ON FACEBOOK AND: BIRTHDAYS

Finding Family History Through Social Networks
Finding Family History Through Social Networks
By MICKEY MEECE

Genealogy Web sites and social networks are making it easier than ever to trace family heritage.
May 19, 2011
MORE ON FACEBOOK AND: COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES, GENEALOGY, SOCIAL NETWORKING (INTERNET), COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET, TWITTER, ANCESTRY.COM

In Silicon Valley, Buying Companies for Their Engineers
In Silicon Valley, Buying Companies for Their Engineers
By MIGUEL HELFT

Some companies want talent so badly, they buy start-ups for their employees and then jettison the products.
May 18, 2011
MORE ON FACEBOOK AND: START-UPS, MERGERS, ACQUISITIONS AND DIVESTITURES, HIRING AND PROMOTION, ENTREPRENEURSHIP, LABOR AND JOBS, COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET, SILICON VALLEY (CALIF), ZYNGA, FACEBOOK INC, GOOGLE INC

LinkedIn Raises I.P.O. Goal to More Than $405 Million
By DEALBOOK

With investor demand surging for social media companies, LinkedIn said it planned to sell as much as 9 million shares at $42 to $45 apiece, more than 30 percent above previous expectations.
May 17, 2011
MORE ON FACEBOOK AND: Initial Public Offerings, Social Networking (Internet), Facebook.com, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Groupon, LinkedIn, New York Stock Exchange

Higher I.P.O. Price Values LinkedIn at $4.3 Billion
By EVELYN M. RUSLI

LinkedIn is poised to make its closely watched stock market debut on Thursday. Who's next among the social media darlings?
May 17, 2011
MORE ON FACEBOOK AND: Social Networking (Internet), Facebook.com, Groupon, LinkedIn, Twitter, Hoffman, Reid

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Morocco: The Youth Rise Up

An inside look at Morocco's youth-led revolt, where a group of activists, formed on Facebook, organize nationwide protests demanding democracy.
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To young, conservative Muslims, Yasir Qadhi is one of the most influential clerics in America. The 36-year-old Houston native has preached before tens of thousands of Muslims, drawing a strong following on Facebook and Twitter. Law-enforcement agents have also tracked his rise among a subset of Musl
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Goldman Sachs' next big Silicon Valley move after Facebook is AppSense, a company providing user virtualization technology. This deal, plus K.K.R.'s earnings, are discussed in this CNBC video.
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Founded in February 2004, Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information through the social graph, the digital mapping of people's real-world social connections. Anyone can sign up for Facebook and interact with the people they know in a trusted environment. Facebook is a part of millions of people’s lives and half of the users

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Facebook Takes Legal Aim at Man Who Claims 50% of Zuckerberg's Shares
31Share
Social Media Facebook has finally filed a formal legal response to Paul Ceglia, the convicted felon and woodchip salesman who claims Mark Zuckerberg promised him a stake in Facebook in...
about 4 hours ago by Chris Taylor
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10 Fascinating Facebook Facts - And What They Say About Us
28Share
Social Media A study released this week revealed that 47% of Facebook users have swear words on their pages. A survey last week, meanwhile, showed that undergraduate men who talk about...
about 5 hours ago by Pete Cashmore
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New Bing Ads Highlight the Power of Facebook Friends [VIDEO]
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Business & Marketing Microsoft plays up a key selling point over Google -- Facebook integration -- in a new round of TV spots for its Bing search engine. The ads, the first for Bing from...
about 7 hours ago by Todd Wasserman
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Google Overtakes Yahoo in Display Advertising [STATS]
34Share
Business & Marketing Google, which long ago passed Yahoo in search advertising, now has overtaken the company in display ads as well, according to IDC. Google claimed the number-one spot in...
about 8 hours ago by Todd Wasserman
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The Atlantic Launches Twitter-Based Book Club
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Social Media The Atlantic has announced the first selection for 1book140, an online reading and discussion club that will span the publication's presences on Twitter, Facebook and...
about 8 hours ago by Lauren Indvik
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Online Ad Revenues Jump 23% to New Record
105Share
Business & Marketing Internet advertising revenues hit $7.3 billion in the first quarter, setting a new record, the Interactive Advertising Bureau reports. The figure is a 23% jump over Q1...
about 10 hours ago by Todd Wasserman
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7 Ways Ad Agency Pros Stay on Top of Social Media Trends
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about 10 hours ago by Todd Wasserman
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Deadmau5 Wants You To Design His Next Giant Mouse Head
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about 12 hours ago by Brenna Ehrlich
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"American Idol" Twitter Curse Is Right Again [SPOILER]
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about 23 hours ago by Charlie White
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Geico Wants You to Get Your BroStache On [VIDEO]
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1 day ago by Todd Wasserman
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General Information
Website facebook.com
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Category Consumer Web
Employees 1,000
Founded 2/04
Description Social network
Offices
Headquarters
1601 S California Ave
Palo Alto, CA, 94304
USA
See nearby companies
Europe HQ
Dublin, IRL
See nearby companies
New York
340 Madison Ave
New York, NY, 10017
USA
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People
Mark Zuckerberg
Founder and CEO, Board Of Directors
Bret Taylor
CTO
David Ebersman
CFO
Chris Kelly
Chief Privacy Officer
Sheryl Sandberg
COO
Carolyn Everson
VP, Global Advertising Sales
David Fischer
Vice President Advertising and Global Operations
Ted Ullyot
VP, General Counsel
Show All People
Former People
Dustin Moskovitz
Co-founder
Owen Van Natta
Chief Revenue Officer, VP of Operations
Matt Cohler
VP of Product Management
Show All Former People
Acquisitions
Total $60M
Snaptu, 3/11 1
Beluga, 3/11 2
Rel8tion, 1/11 3
Pursuit, 2011 4
Zenbe, 11/10 5
drop.io, 10/10 6
Nextstop, 9/10 7 $2.5M
Chai Labs, 8/10 8 $10M
ShareGrove, 5/10 9
Divvyshot, 4/10 10
Octazen Solutions, 2/10 11
FriendFeed, 8/09 12 $47.5M
Parakey, 7/07 13
Investments
LuckyCal 14 2/09
Wildfire Interactive 15 12/08
Funding
Total $2.34B
Angel, 9/04 16
Peter Thiel
Reid Hoffman
$500k
Series A, 5/05 17
Accel Partners
Mark Pincus
Reid Hoffman
$12.7M
Series B, 4/06 18
Greylock Partners
Meritech Capital Partners
The Founders Fund
$27.5M
Series C, 10/07 19
Microsoft
$240M
Series C, 11/07 20
Li Ka-shing
$60M
Series C, 1/08 21
European Founders Fund
$15M
Series C, 3/08 22
Li Ka-shing
$60M
Debt, 5/08 23
TriplePoint Capital
$100M
Series D, 5/09 24
Digital Sky Technologies
$200M
Unattributed, 6/10 25
Elevation Partners
$120M
Unattributed, 1/11 26
Goldman Sachs
Digital Sky Technologies
$1.5B
Competitors
MySpace, Friendster, Slide, Zvents, FriendFeed, hi5, Photobucket (Old), Webshots, Flickr, Spokeo, Piczo, ZYB, YouTube, Badoo, openPeople, Bigsight Media Group, Xiaonei, Daikana, Bebo, AOL, CityIN, Xanga, Spleak, Rekatu, Tagged, VoxOx, SideStripe, Tongxue, Friendsta, V Kontakte
Service Providers
The OutCast Agency
GTT
Transvideo Studios
Ballou PR
France
Cooley
The Local Data Company
Tags
facebook, college, students, profiles, network, online-communities, social-networking
Facebook

Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 500 million users.

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskowitz and Chris Hughes to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks.

The original idea for the term Facebook came from Zuckerberg’s high school (Phillips Exeter Academy). The Exeter Face Book was passed around to every student as a way for students to get to know their classmates for the following year. It was a physical paper book until Zuckerberg brought it to the internet.

With this success, Zuckerberg, Moskowitz and Hughes moved out to Palo Alto for the summer and rented a sublet. A few weeks later, Zuckerberg ran into the former cofounder of Napster, Sean Parker. Parker soon moved in to Zuckerberg’s apartment and they began working together. Parker provided the introduction to their first investor, Peter Thiel, cofounder of PayPal and managing partner of The Founders Fund. Thiel invested $500,000 into Facebook.

With millions more users, Friendster attempted to acquire the company for $10 million in mid 2004. Facebook turned down the offer and subsequently received $12.7 million in funding from Accel Partners, at a valuation of around $100 million. Facebook continued to grow, opening up to high school students in September 2005 and adding an immensely popular photo sharing feature the next month. The next spring, Facebook received $25 million in funding from Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital, as well as previous investors Accel Partners and Peter Thiel. The pre-money valuation for this deal was about $525 million. Facebook subsequently opened up to work networks, eventually amassing over 20,000 work networks. Finally in September 2006, Facebook opened to anyone with an email address.

In the summer of 2006, Yahoo attempted to acquire the company for $1 billion dollars. Reports actually indicated that Zuckerberg made a verbal agreement to sell Facebook to Yahoo. A few days later when Yahoo’s stock price took a dive, the offer was lowered to $800 million and Zuckerberg walked away from the deal. Yahoo later offered $1 billion again, this time Zuckerberg turned Yahoo down and earned instant notoriety as the “kid” who turned down a billion. This was not the first time Zuckerberg turned down an acquisition offer; Viacom had previously unsuccessfully attempted to acquire the company for $750 million in March, 2006.

One sour note for Facebook has been the controversy with social network ConnectU. The founders of ConnectU, former classmates of Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard, allege that Zuckerberg stole their original source code for Facebook. The ordeal has gone to court, and has now been resolved.

Notwithstanding this lingering controversy, Facebook’s growth in the fall of 2007 was staggering. Over 1 million new users signed up every week, 200,000 daily, totaling over 50 million active users. Facebook received 40 billion page views a month. Long gone were the days of Facebook as a social network for college students. 11% of users are over the age of 35, and the fastest growing demographic is users over 30. Facebook has also seen huge growth internationally; 15% of the user base is in Canada. Facebook users’ passion, or addiction, to the site is unparalleled: more than half use the product every single day and users spend an average of 19 minutes a day on Facebook. Facebook is 6th most trafficked site in the US and top photo sharing site with 4.1 billion photos uploaded.

Based on these types of numbers, Microsoft invested $240 million into Facebook for 1.6 percent of the company in October 2007. This meant a valuation of over $15 billion, making Facebook the 5th most valuable US Internet company, yet with only $150 million in annual revenue. Many explained Microsoft’s decision as being solely driven by the desire to outbid Google.

Facebook’s competitors include MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, LinkedIn, Tagged, Hi5, Piczo, and Open Social.
Milestones

Check
Facebook added Benjamin Joe as Strategist.
Posted 5/17/11 at 8:49pm
Check
Facebook added Carolyn Everson as VP, Global Advertising Sales. (2/1/11)
Posted 5/6/11 at 5:34am
Check
Facebook added Amin Zoufonoun as Corporate Development.
Posted 3/14/11 at 10:28am
Check
Facebook added Vaughan Smith as Corporate Development.
Posted 3/14/11 at 10:24am
Check
Facebook added Eduardo Saverin as Co-Founder.
Posted 3/4/11 at 3:40pm
Check
Facebook added Julien Codorniou as Head of platform partnerships. (2/17/11)
Posted 2/23/11 at 12:41pm
Check
Facebook added Keith Schacht as Product Manager. (12/1/10)
Posted 1/27/11 at 9:59pm
Check
Facebook added Deborah Liu as Manager of Product Marketing, Facebook Credits.
Posted 1/25/11 at 3:53pm
Check
Facebook added Julio Vasconcellos as Country Manager - Brazil.
Posted 1/12/11 at 2:49pm
Check
Facebook added Ömer Özgün Işıkman as Engineer.
Posted 12/8/10 at 3:32am
Check
Facebook added David Fischer as Vice President Advertising and Global Operations. (3/1/10)
Posted 12/4/10 at 7:55am
Check
Facebook added Christian Hernandez as Head of International Business Development. (10/1/09)
Posted 11/3/10 at 5:57am
Check
Facebook added Steve King as Director, Media Sales.
Posted 10/21/10 at 5:31am
Check
Facebook added Eugene Letuchy as Software Engineer.
Posted 10/4/10 at 1:30am
Check
Facebook added Hadi Partovi as Advisor. (4/1/10)
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Facebook added Michael Brown as Manager Corporate Development.
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Confirmed: Facebook Acquires Snaptu (For An Estimated $60 – $70 Million) (techcrunch.com) []
techcrunch.com []
All Things D (emoney.allthingsd.com) []
techcrunch.com []
Facebook Buys Yet Another NYC Startup -- Why Doesn't It Just Open An Engineering Office Here Already? (businessinsider.com) []
Facebook Acquires Drop.io, Nabs Sam Lessin (techcrunch.com) []
Facebook Acquires Social Travel Recommendation Site Nextstop (techcrunch.com) []
Facebook Makes Another ‘Acq-Hire’ Chai Labs; Deal Estimated At $10 Million (paidcontent.org) []
mashable.com []
Facebook Acquires Divvyshot to Improve Facebook Photos (techcrunch.com) []
techcrunch.com []
Facebook Acquires FriendFeed (techcrunch.com) []
techcrunch.com []
fbFund (marlenevergaraborquez.com) [edit]
Citation Needed [add]
Citation Needed []
Jim Breyer: Extra $500 Million Round For Facebook A “Total Fiction” (techcrunch.com) []
Facebook Funding (facebook.com) []
Liveblogging Press Conference (techcrunch.com) []
Facebook gets $60M from Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing (venturebeat.com) []
techcrunch.com []
Updated: Facebook Investor Li Ka-Shing Upping Stake To $120 Million: Report (paidcontent.org) []
businessweek.com []
Facebook Takes That $200 Million Investment From The Russians At A $10 Billion Valuation. (techcrunch.com) []
Elevation Invests Another $120 Million in Facebook as that IPO Looks More Distant (techcrunch.com) []
Facebook Raises $1.5 Billion (prnewswire.com) []
Facebook adds comments to the Mini-Feed. It’s like FriendFeed is looking in the mirror (venturebeat.com) []
Citation Needed []
The fbFund Gives Out Cash To 25 Facebook Developers (techcrunch.com) []
Facebook Movie Poster Announces 500 Million Facebook Users Before Facebook Does (techcrunch.com) []
By the way, Facebook for iPhone has 57.8 million monthly active users. (Versus 8,810 for the Microsoft Kin.) (businessinsider.com) []
Zuckerberg Makes It Official: Facebook Hits 500 Million Members (techcrunch.com) []
Facebook To Begin Giving Y Combinator Startups VIP Treatment (techcrunch.com) []
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Donates $100 Million To Fix Newark New Jersey Public Schools (businessinsider.com) []
Facebook, KPCB Announce $250 Million Social Networking Fund (businessinsider.com) []
200 Million People Use Facebook Mobile – Up 3X From Last Year (businessinsider.com) []
Facebook Acquired FB.com From The American Farm Bureau To Use Internally (techcrunch.com) []
Facebook Connect: 250 million monthly users, adding 10,000 sites every day (bgr.com) []
Facebook Shares Hit $28.26 Per Share, That’s a $70+ Billion Valuation (techcrunch.com) []
Facebook Users Uploaded A Record 750 Million Photos Over New Year’s (techcrunch.com) []
Facebook Considering A Leaseback Deal Worth As Much As $420 Million For New HQ (techcrunch.com) []
Facebook Teams With Snaptu To Launch Rich App For Feature Phones (techcrunch.com) []
Kevin Rose Invests In Facebook On SecondMarket (techcrunch.com) []
Wow. Just… Wow: Facebook Hits Record $75 Billion Valuation On SecondMarket (techcrunch.com) []
Facebook Now Has 250 Million Mobile Users (techcrunch.com) []

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