Year Facebook Started: Mark Zuckerberg, 23, founded Facebook while studying psychology at Harvard University. A keen computer programmer, Mr Zuckerberg had already created a variety of social-networking internet sites for fellow students, including Coursematch, which permitted individuals to watch people taking their level, and also Facemash, where you can rank people's beauty.
Year Facebook Started
In February 2004 Mr Zuckerberg introduced "The facebook", as it was originally known; the name drawn from the sheets of paper distributed to freshers, profiling pupils and personnel. Within 24 hours, 1,200 Harvard trainees had registered, and after one month, over fifty percent of the undergraduate populace had an account.
The network was promptly extended to other Boston universities, the Ivy League and also ultimately all United States universities. It ended up being Facebook.com in August 2005 after the address was acquired for $200,000. United States high schools can register from September 2005, after that it started to spread out worldwide, reaching UK colleges the following month.
As of September 2006, the network was prolonged past educational institutions to anybody with a registered email address. The website stays cost-free to sign up with, and also earns a profit through advertising revenue. Yahoo as well as Google are among firms which have revealed interest in a buy-out, with rumoured figures of around $2bn (₤ 975m) being gone over. Mr Zuckerberg has actually thus far refused to sell.
The website's features have continuouslied establish during 2007. Users could now give presents to close friends, article totally free classified advertisements as well as establish their very own applications - graffiti and Scrabble are especially prominent.
This month the business revealed that the number of registered customers had gotten to 30 million, making it the biggest social-networking site with an education and learning emphasis.
Previously in the year there were rumours that Royal prince William had signed up, however it was later on revealed to be a mere impostor. The MP David Miliband, the radio DJ Jo Whiley, the actor Orlando Blossom, the artist Tracey Emin and also the creator of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, are amongst verified high-profile participants.
This month authorities outlawed a flash-mob-style water fight in Hyde Park, organised with Facebook, because of public safety anxieties. And there was better dispute at Oxford as students realised that university authorities were checking their Facebook accounts.
The legal situation versus Facebook go back to September 2004, when Divya Narendra, and also the brothers Cameron as well as Tyler Winklevoss, who started the social-networking site ConnectU, charged Mr Zuckerberg of copying their ideas and coding. Mr Zuckerberg had functioned as a computer system designer for them when they were all at Harvard prior to Facebook was produced.
The situation was dismissed because of a technicality in March 2007 yet without a judgment.
