Facebook was started in October, 2003 by a sophomore at Harvard University named Mark Zuckerberg. It is a social network site thats name references the paper ‘face books’ depicting members of a campus community that some US colleges and preparatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff as a way to get to know other people on campus. It was originally available to students of Harvard, then to other Ivy League schools, other colleges, and then the rest of us.
Here are some interesting statistics pulled from Facebook’s very own statistics page. Click the link to find more details about the founders, executives, timelines, etc
- As of today Facebook has 175 Million users
- Facebook now has users on every continent, with half of them logging in at least once a day. 70% of it’s users are outside the USA.
- If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria.
- Facebook obeys classic network-effects laws: It gets better—more useful, more entertaining—as more people join it, which causes it to grow even faster still.
- For the past several months Facebook has an average of 374,000 people have signed up every day.
- At this rate, Facebook will grow to nearly 300 million people by this time next year.
With the simple ability to put yourself in the network by way of pictures, videos, and text, and with so many people in this social network, keeping a sense of privacy is critical. Here is a great article by Nick O’Neill I have found very helpful that unpacks 10 safe and responsible practices to consider while enjoying the wonders of this social network. Let me know if it was useful.
March 7, 2009 at 5:43 am
I came across this blog post a while back and it encouraged me to go through my privacy settings once more. This should be mandatory reading for everyone first signing up for facebook.