Origin and Growth of Facebook

The social networking website Facebook has become an integral part of most Internet users nowadays. It has got a massive user base of over 800 million users and is the second most popular site in the world after Google.

Facebook was first launched in February 2004 and was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with the help of his college friends and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. Facebook initially launched a high school version of the network and in 2005, Facebook extended its membership eligibility to employees of some companies. Later, universities of other countries were added to the Facebook network. Finally, Facebook was extended to every person of age older than thirteen with a valid e-mail address.

When Facebook was first launched eight years ago, it only had a handful of basic features in the network. It was quite simple and plain looking compared to other social networks of that time such as MySpace and Friendster. Moreover, it was a closed social network only for certain educational institutions and companies which kept the user base quite low in the initial years compared to the top social networks of that time. However, many also argue that the simple looks and gradual approach was one of the main reasons for the massive success of the social network in today's date.

With time, several new features were added to Facebook thereby improving it even further. As of now, any person above 13 years of age can join the social network by filling up basic personal information such as name and email address. Users can also opt to update their education, relationship, hobbies, occupation and other details in their profile. They can interact with friends, join groups, add interesting apps and chat with friends on Facebook too.

Another popular feature in Facebook is the ability of Facebook users to upload photos. There is no limit to the number of photos a person can upload or store in his or her account. The process of uploading photos is quite simple too. They can create album and upload photos in them. Then the album is put into their profile. These can be seen by other friends who can comment on them by using the comment form. These photos and messages can also be shared and spread by using share link. Other Facebook users can also recommend the photo or post by clicking on the like button.

The popularity of Facebook has been increasing day by day. Facebook users in 2011 had increased up to 43% when compared with the previous year. Nowadays, all top companies and websites also have their own fan pages on Facebook. Many of them interact with customers and even provide support though their official pages. There are over 800 million Facebook users in the world and the number of users is only increasing with time. United States has the highest number of registered users followed by India and Indonesia. It is predicted that more than half of the world's Internet population would use Facebook in the coming years. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6849907