When Facebook Started
In February 2004 Mr Zuckerberg introduced "The facebook", as it was initially known; the name taken from the sheets of paper distributed to freshers, profiling trainees and team. Within 24 hours, 1,200 Harvard pupils had registered, and also after one month, over fifty percent of the undergraduate population had a profile.
The network was promptly reached other Boston colleges, the Ivy Organization and ultimately all US colleges. It came to be Facebook.com in August 2005 after the address was purchased for $200,000. United States high schools might subscribe from September 2005, then it started to spread out worldwide, reaching UK universities the list below month.
As of September 2006, the network was expanded past universities to anybody with a registered e-mail address. The site stays totally free to sign up with, and also earns a profit with advertising and marketing earnings. Yahoo and also Google are amongst firms which have shared interest in a buy-out, with rumoured figures of around $2bn (₤ 975m) being discussed. Mr Zuckerberg has actually so far refused to market.
The site's functions have remained to create during 2007. Users could currently give gifts to good friends, blog post cost-free classified advertisements or even develop their very own applications - graffiti and Scrabble are especially preferred.
This month the company announced that the variety of registered individuals had actually gotten to 30 million, making it the biggest social-networking site with an education focus.
Previously in the year there were rumours that Royal prince William had actually registered, but it was later on revealed to be a mere impostor. The MP David Miliband, the radio DJ Jo Whiley, the actor Orlando Flower, the artist Tracey Emin and also the creator of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, are among validated high-profile participants.
This month authorities prohibited a flash-mob-style water fight in Hyde Park, arranged with Facebook, as a result of public safety concerns. And also there was further dispute at Oxford as students realised that college authorities were checking their Facebook profiles.
The lawful situation against Facebook go back to September 2004, when Divya Narendra, as well as the bros Cameron and also Tyler Winklevoss, that started the social-networking website ConnectU, implicated Mr Zuckerberg of copying their concepts as well as coding. Mr Zuckerberg had actually functioned as a computer programmer for them when they were all at Harvard prior to Facebook was produced.
The situation was dismissed because of a technicality in March 2007 but without a judgment.