Overview[]
Facebook is
| “ | a social networking service and web site where users can create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, photos, or videos.[1] | ” |
History[]
Facebook was originally created at Harvard University. It began as a Harvard-only application, which only permitted users with a Harvard.edu email address to join. Later membership expanded to include other colleges, including Stanford, Columbia and Yale, then any U.S. university or college student. In September 2005, Facebook expanded to include high-school students. In October 2005, international school networks were added. In September 2006, the site began to allow anyone over the age of 13 to join.
Current scope of Facebook[]
| “ | Facebook is a free, web-based social networking site with over 153 million members in the United States. To join Facebook, a user must provide his or her name, age, gender, and a valid e-mail address, and agree to Facebook's terms of service. Once registered, a member receives a "Profile" page, may upload a “profile photo” representing him or herself, and may establish connections with other members by approving them as Facebook "Friends." In addition, Facebook allows members to share information with their Friends in a variety of ways: members may "Post" by adding text, images, videos, and hyperlinks to their own profile page; "Check-in" by announcing their geographical location within the feature "Places"; and "Like" content by clicking on a thumbs-up button that appears next to certain items on the Internet, both within Facebook.com and on external sites. Whenever members take one of these actions, Facebook generates a "Story," which then appears on their Friends' "News Feed."[2] | ” |
The site allows individuals to create and customize their own profiles, and organizations to create their own Web pages, with photos, videos, and information about themselves, and send e-mails or instant messages to other members. Individual profiles may contain — at the user’s discretion — detailed personal information, including birth date, home address, telephone number, employment history, educational background, and religious beliefs.
Facebook currently has over 2.4 billion monthly active users worldwide.[3]
More than 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States. Each user has on average 130 "friends." Over 50% of Facebook users today are outside of college, with the fastest growing demographic being those 35 years old and over.[4] According to the Nielsen Company, Facebook was the number one global social networking site in December 2009 with 206.9 million unique visitors.
Facebook maintains an 85% market share of U.S. 4-year universities. In December 2008, Facebook received over 222 million unique visitors, and it demonstrated 127% growth over the previous year.
Approximately 2.5 billion photos are uploaded to Facebook each month.[5]
References[]
- ↑ Kinbook, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 2012 WL 246013, at *1 n.1 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 25, 2012).
- ↑ Fraley v. Facebook, Inc., 2011 WL 6303898, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 16, 2011).
- ↑ Number of Monthly Active Facebook Users Worldwide as of 2nd Quarter 2019, STATISTA (full-text).
- ↑ Facebook Statistics.
- ↑ Chris Putnam, "Faster Simpler Photo Uploads," The Facebook Blog (Feb. 5, 2010) (full-text).
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