When was facebook formed

Now known simply as Facebook, the site quickly ballooned into one of the most significant social media companies in history. Today, Facebook is one of the most valuable companies in the world, with over 2 billion monthly active users. The origins of Facebook have been highly scrutinized including in the critically acclaimed film The Social Network , but the exact source of the idea remains unclear.

What is obvious is that Zuckerberg had twin gifts for coding and causing a stir, both of which served him well at Harvard. The previous year, he had become a campus celebrity by creating FaceMash, a website where students could vote on which of two randomly-selected Harvard women was more attractive, and quickly running afoul of both the administration and several women's groups.

FaceMash was short-lived but popular, leading Zuckerberg to consider the value of creating a campus-wide social network. Over the course of his sophomore year, Zuckerberg built what would become Facebook. When it launched on February 4, he and his roommates were glued to their screens, watching as an estimated 1,, of their fellow students signed up for their site within its first 24 hours of existence.

From there, Facebook expanded rapidly, moving to other Boston-area schools and the rest of the Ivy League that spring. From there, Facebook spread across the world, becoming not only an incredibly valuable company but also one of the most important institutions of the early 21st century.

The go-to social media site for a generation of internet users and one which was readily adopted by older users as it transformed from exclusive to universal , Facebook was one of the major forces that brought the internet into the highly-participatory phase full of user-generated content sometimes referred to as "Web 2.

In addition to allowing misinformation and fake accounts to proliferate, Facebook has drawn criticism both for selling its users' data and for failing to adequately protect it. Nonetheless, Facebook continues to dominate the social media market, generating by far the most ad revenue and maintaining over half of the total market share.

These were online directories that featured photos of students alongside some information about them. On February 4 , the first iteration of Facebook was born, then known as thefacebook. According to the Winklevoss twins and Narendra, they had approached Zuckerberg asking for his assistance in creating a social network for Harvard students called "HarvardConnection".

This claim was explored in the Oscar-winning film The Social Network , which depicted Zuckerberg meeting with the Winklevoss brothers and Narendra to discuss their idea before creating his own without their knowledge. Following a lawsuit filed against Zuckerberg, eventually all three received a settlement in that included 1.

Facebook proved extremely popular with Harvard students when it was first launched, so much so that the site was soon also made available to students at Stanford, Yale and Columbia before expanding to numerous other colleges. By September 26 , anyone in the world could make themselves a Facebook account, as long as they were at least 13 years old and had a valid email address. As the number of people becoming members of Facebook grew, so did the number of people working for the company.

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