Facebook is a social networking service launched in February 2004 that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. As of now the social networking site has over 500 million active users across the globe. Users can create a personal profile, add other users as friends and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Moreover, users can join common interest user groups, organized by city, workplace, school, college or other characteristics.
Mark Zuckerberg, while attending Harvard as a sophomore, launched the Facebook in February 2004. Membership was initially restricted to students of Harvard University. In two weeks after its launch, the social networking site was a huge hit; half of the student body at Harvard had signed up. Other schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskowitz and Chris Hughes to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks.
[...] Facebook is 6th most visited site in the US and top photo sharing site with 4.1 billion photos uploaded. The website attracts 100,000 new users every day. One can count MySpace, Friendster and LinkedIn among Facebook's competitors. It is now available in more than 30 languages. Its revenues accounted for $800 billion in 2009 and it has over 1700 employees. II. The privacy issue A. The problem of identity theft Several concerns have emerged regarding the use of Facebook as a means of surveillance and data mining. [...]
[...] When they sign an advertising contract with Facebook they fill a form specifying what kind of people they want to reach: gender, age, place of residence, political views, personal situation and so on. III. Facebook: the new place for campaigning A. The use of Facebook for campaigning Facebook has become the new way for campaigning. It helps to reach millions of people, especially youngsters who don't usually read newspapers or are not particularly interested in politics. Barack Obama used Facebook a lot for his campaign. [...]
[...] With the sale of social networking website MySpace to News Corp on July rumors spread about the possible sale of Facebook to a larger media company. The young entrepreneur Zuckerberg had already confirmed that he did not want to sell his brain child and denied the rumors. In September 2006, serious negotiations between Facebook and Yahoo! took place concerning acquisition of Facebook, with prices reaching as high as billion. Other companies, including Google, expressed interest in buying a portion of Facebook. [...]
[...] The Financial Times also notes that social networking site Facebook has become an important venue in the Arab world for protesting the Israeli campaign, as well as a potent fundraising tool for supporters of the Palestinian cause. Facebook has played a pivotal role, coordinating groups of young people who pray or donate money to the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees, Red Crescent Society and other relief organisations. Arab governments often control public protests, leaving donations as one of the few means available to express support for the Palestinians and anger at the Israeli offensive. [...]
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