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Facebook is a social networking website launched on February 4, 2004. The website is owned and operated by Facebook, Inc., the privately held parent company of the website. The free-access website allows users to join networks, such as a school, place of employment, or geographic region, to connect and interact with other people. Users can post messages for their friends to see, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves. The name of the website refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of a campus community that some American colleges and preparatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff as a way to get to know other people on campus.
The website has more than 69 million active users worldwide.[4] According to Alexa, the website's ranking among all websites increased from 60th to 7th in terms of traffic, from September 2006 to September 2007.[5] It is also the most popular website for uploading photos, with 14 million uploaded daily.[4] Due to the website's popularity, Facebook has met with some criticism and controversy in its short lifespan related to privacy concerns, the political views of its founders, and censorship issues. Facebook is the most popular social networking site in many English-speaking countries, including Canada[6] and the United Kingdom.[7]
Website
Facebook users can choose to join one or more networks on the website, such as a school, place of employment, geographic region, or social group.[33] These networks help users connect with members of the same network. Users can also connect to friends, giving them access to their friends' profiles.[34]
The website is free to users, but generates revenue from advertising, including banner ads.[35] Users create profiles that often contain photos and lists of personal interests, exchange private or public messages, and join groups of friends.[36] The viewing of detailed profile data is restricted to users from the same network or confirmed friends. In a 2006 study conducted by Student Monitor, a New Jersey-based limited liability company specializing in research concerning the college student market, Facebook was named the second most popular thing among undergraduates, tied with beer and sex and only ranked lower than the iPod.[37]
Facebook Features
Facebook is a social networking website. This is a list of features that can be found on the website. Basic features include friend networking with others and posting on "wall".
News Feed
On 6 September 2006, Ruchi Sanghvi announced a new home page feature called News Feed.[1] Originally, when users logged into Facebook, they were presented with a customizable version of their own profile. The new layout, by contrast, created an alternate home page in which users saw a constantly updated list of their friends' Facebook activity. News Feed highlights information that includes profile changes, upcoming events, and birthdays, among other updates. News Feed also shows conversations taking place between the walls of a user's friends. An integral part of the News Feed interface is the Mini-Feed, a news stream on the user's profile page that shows updates about that user. Unlike in the News Feed, the user can delete events from the Mini-Feed after they appear so that they are no longer visible to profile visitors.
Initially, the addition of the News Feed caused some discontent among Facebook users. Many users complained that the News Feed was too cluttered and full of undesired information. Others were concerned that the News Feed made it too easy for other people to track activities like changes in relationship status, events, and conversations with other users.[2] In response to this dissatisfaction, creator Mark Zuckerberg issued an apology for the site's failure to include appropriate customizable privacy features. Thereafter, users were able to control what types of information were shared automatically with friends.[3] Currently, users may prevent friends from seeing updates about several types of especially private activities, although other events are not customizable in this way.
Recently, Facebook allows users to minimize how often they see certain types of stories and certain friends in their News Feed.
Wall
The Wall is a space on each user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see while displaying the time and date the message was written. One user's wall is visible to anyone with the ability to see their full profile, and different users' wall posts show up in an individual's News Feed. Many users use their friends' walls for leaving short, temporal notes. More private discourse is saved for Messages, which are sent to a person's Inbox, and are visible only to the sender and recipient(s) of the Message, much like email.
In July 2007, Facebook allowed users to post attachments to the wall,[4] whereas previously the wall was limited to textual content only.
Photos
One of the most popular applications on Facebook is the Photos application, where users can upload albums of photos, tag friends, and comment on photos. According to Facebook,[5] there are:
1.7 billion user photos
2.2 billion friends tagged in user photos
160 terabytes of photo storage used with an extra 60 terabytes available
60+ million photos added each week which take up 5 terabytes of disk space
3+ billion photo images served to users every day
100,000+ images served per second during peak traffic windows
Gifts
Some of Facebook's gifts, as displayed in the website's gift shop.
In February 2007, Facebook added a new gift feature to the website. Friends could send "gifts" -- small icons of novelty items designed by former Apple designer Susan Kare -- to each other by selecting one from Facebook's virtual gift shop and adding a message. Gifts given to a user appear on the recipient's wall with the giver's message, unless the giver decided to give the gift privately, in which case the giver's name and message is not displayed to other users.
Additionally, all gifts (including private gifts) received by a user are displayed in the recipient's "gift box" (right above their wall on their profile), marked with either the first name of the user (for public gifts) or the word "Private." An "Anonymous" option is also available, by which anyone with profile access can see the gift, but only the recipient will see the message. None will see the giver's name, and the gift will go in the recipient's gift box but not the wall.
Facebook users are given one free gift to give upon account signup. Each additional gift given by a user costs US$1.00. The initial selection of gifts was Valentine's Day themed, and 50% of the net proceeds (after credit card processing fees were taken out, etc.) received through February 2007 were donated to the charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure. After the month of February, the proceeds were no longer donated. Soon after, Facebook began making one new gift available each day, most of which had a limited supply or were available for a limited time.
With the advent of Applications came a way to subvert the required US$1.00 payment; however, the gifts in the "Free Gifts" application, created by Zachary Allia,[6] are not the same as the official gifts, as they are displayed in a different manner.
Marketplace
In May 2007, Facebook introduced the Facebook Marketplace allowing users to post free classified ads within the following categories: For Sale, Housing, Jobs, and Other. Ads can be posted in either available or wanted format.[7] The market place is available for all Facebook users and is currently free.[8]
Pokes
Facebook includes a "poke" feature that allows one user to send a "poke" to another. According to Facebook's FAQ section on the Poke Feature, "a poke is a way to interact with your friends on Facebook. When we created the poke, we thought it would be cool to have a feature without any specific purpose. People interpret the poke in many different ways, and we encourage you to come up with your own meanings." In principle, this is intended to be a "nudge" to attract the attention of the other user. However, while many Facebook users, as intended, use the feature to attract attention or say hello,[9] some users construe it as a sexual advance.[10] This interpretation of the feature inspired a popular Facebook group titled "Enough with the Poking, Lets Just Have Sex," which, as of April 2008, has more than 366,000 members.
There are several applications such as "X Me" and "SuperPoke!" that allow users to put any action in place of the word "poke."
Status
The "status" feature allows users to inform their friends and the Facebook community of their current whereabouts and actions. Facebook originally prompted the status update with "User name is..." and Facebook users filled in the rest. However, on December 13, 2007, the requirement to start a status update with "is" was removed, and all status updates read "User name ..."[11] Status updates are noted in the "Recently updated" section of a user's friend list.
Events
Facebook events are a way for members to let friends know about upcoming events in their community and to organize social gatherings.[12] Events require an event name, tagline, network, host name, event type, start and end time, location & city, and a guest list of friends invited. Events can be open, closed, or secret. When setting up an event the user can choose to allow friends to upload photos, video, and posted items.
Networks and groups
Facebook allows different networks and groups to which many users can join. It also allows privacy settings on basis of networks. Groups are used for discussions and events etc.
Video
During the time that Facebook released its platform, it also released an application[13] of its own for sharing videos on Facebook. Users can add their videos with the service by uploading video, adding video through Facebook Mobile, and using a webcam recording feature. Additionally, users can "tag" their friends in videos they add much like the way users can tag their friends in photos.
Chat
On April 5, 2008 Facebook pre-released Facebook Chat.[14][15] As of April 23, 2008, Facebook chat was released to the entire Facebook userbase. Users are only able to chat with their Facebook friends and on a one-to-one basis. As of yet, Digsby is the only third party instant message client to support Facebook Chat.