The History of FaceBook
Social Media
Social Media have been just about for a while now, and the majorities are focused on social networks to connect their friends, long lost friends and colleagues. As a matter of fact, Bulletin Board Services (BBS) and Usenet groups were examples of early forms of social networks. As the concept evolved, generalized communities, like Tripod and Geocities (back in the mid-1990s), brought user together through chat rooms and forums.
Social Networks
At this moment, social networks are flourishing all over the Web, including the ever-popular Twitter, Plurk, MySpace, and LinkedIn. Some social sites, like Classmates.com, specialize in connecting your former schoolmates, whereas other social sites, such as SixDegrees.com, target on indirect ties between people. Some sites specialize in niche groups, whereas others aim for more generalized populations of people.
Internet business strategies
Today, Internet business strategies are recognizing the opportunities inherent in social networks and are in high spirits to cater to different groups of people and their networking needs. So where does Facebook fit in? In fact, Facebook is quickly becoming a front-runner in the social networking race.
The Facebook
Formerly, facebook called The Facebook and it started out in 2004 as a network geared toward college students at Harvard University. Founded by a computer science major, Mark Zuckerberg, and his roommates, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, the project speedily gained popularity among students. Moreover, with financing assistance from Eduardo Saverin, Facebook grew apparently overnight.
Mark Zuckerberg
Accordingly, the idea was based on paper face books commonly used to acquaint students with the campus community, including staff, faculty, and the new students. Originally the website was only available to Harvard students, but rapidly expanded to other universities in the Boston,Massachusetts area. Facebook swiftly became an Internet sensation, and in 2005, the facebook.com domain was purchased and the base of operations moved to California.
Revenue
Like most of the social networking websites, Facebook generates revenue through advertising, including banner ads. New features and updates are added regularly, and the Facebook folks are quick to heed the ideas, wants, and needs of its members.
Applications Platform
The significant improvement of Facebook was Facebook Platform that allowing a framework for software developers to create applications for the site in 2007. Today, tens of thousands of applications are available for Facebook, withmore added daily.
Reference: Sherry Kinkop Gunter & Facebook