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An
Introduction
to
Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto
 Facebook is a social networking
website that allows people to communicate with their friends and exchange
information. Launched on February 4 2004, Facebook was founded by Mark
Zuckerberg, a former member of the Harvard Class of 2006 and former Ardsley High School student. Initially the
membership was restricted to students of Harvard College.
It was subsequently expanded to other Boston
area schools (Boston College, Boston
University, Harvard, Northeastern University,
Tufts University), Rochester,
Stanford, NYU, Northwestern, and all Ivy League schools within two months.
Many individual universities were added in rapid succession over the next
year. Eventually, people with a university (e.g .edu, .ac.uk, etc.) email
address from institutions across the globe were eligible to join. Networks
were then initiated for high schools and some large companies. Since
September 11 2006, it has been made available to any email addres user who
inputs a certain age range. Users can select to join one or more
participating networks, such as a high school, place of employment, or
geographic region.
As of July 2007, the website
had the largest number of registered users among college-focused sites with
over 34 million active members worldwide (also from non-collegiate
networks). From September 2006 to
September 2007 it increased its ranking from 60th to 7th most visited web
site, and was the number one site for photos in the United States, ahead of public
sites such as Flickr, with over 8.5 million photos uploaded daily.
The name of the site refers
to the paper facebooks depicting members of the campus community that U.S.
colleges and preparatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and
staff as a way to get to know other people on campus.
Operations
The site is free to users
and generates revenue from advertising including banner ads and sponsored
groups (in April 2006, revenue was rumored to be over $1.5 million per week).
Users create profiles that often contain photos and lists of personal
interests, exchange private or public messages, and join groups of friends.
The viewing of detailed profile data is restricted to users from the same
network or confirmed friends. According to TechCrunch, "about 85% of
students in [previously] supported colleges have a profile [on the site]. [Of
those who are signed up,] 60% log in daily. About 85% log in at least once a
week, and 93% log in at least once a month." According to Chris Hughes,
spokesman for Facebook, "People spend an average of 19 minutes a day on
Facebook." In a 2006 study
conducted by Student Monitor, a New Jersey-based limited liability company
specialising in research concerning the college student market, Facebook was
named as the second most "in" thing among undergraduates, tied with
beer and sex and losing only to the iPod.
Origins
and Expansion
Mark Zuckerberg
 Mark
Zuckerberg founded "The Facebook" in February 2004, while attending
Harvard University, with support from Andrew
McCollum and Eduardo Saverin. By the end of the month, more than half of the
undergraduate population at Harvard were registered
on the service. At that time, Zuckerberg was joined by Dustin Moskovitz and
Chris Hughes for site promotion and Facebook expanded to MIT, Boston University,
and Boston College. This expansion continued in
April of 2004 when it expanded to the rest of Ivy League and a few other
schools. The following month, Zuckerberg, McCollum and Moskovitz moved to Palo Alto, California,
to continue work on Facebook's development with additional help from Adam
D'Angelo and Sean Parker. In September, Divya Narendra, Cameron Winklevoss
and Tyler Winklevoss, the owners of the social networking website ConnectU,
filed a lawsuit against Facebook, alleging that Zuckerberg had illegally used
source code intended for a website they asked him to build for them.[10][11]
Also at that time, Facebook received approximately $500,000 from PayPal
co-founder Peter Thiel in an angel round. By December, Facebook's user base
had exceeded one million.
2005
In May 2005, Facebook raised
$12.7 million in venture capital from Accel Partners. On August 23 2005,
Facebook bought the domain name facebook.com from the Aboutface Corporation
for $200,000 and dropped "the" from its name. At that time the site
was overhauled, a change intended to make profile pages more user-friendly,
according to Zuckerberg. Also that month McCollum went back to Harvard
although he continued to serve as a consultant and returned to work on staff
during the summers. As before, Hughes remained in Cambridge while he performed his duties as
company spokesperson. Then, on September 2 2005, Zuckerberg launched the high
school iteration of Facebook, calling it the next logical thing to do. While
initially described as separate "communities" to which users needed
to be invited to participate, within only fifteen days most high school
networks did not require a password to join (although registration with
Facebook was still necessary.) By October, Facebook's expansion had trickled
down to most small universities and junior colleges in the United States,
Canada, and the UK, in addition to having expanded to twenty-one universities
in the United Kingdom, the entire Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios
Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) system in Mexico, the entire University of
Puerto Rico network in Puerto Rico, and the whole University of the Virgin
Islands network in the U.S. Virgin Islands. On December 11 2005, universities
in Australia and New Zealand were added to the Facebook
network, bringing its size to more than 2,000 colleges and more than 25,000
high schools throughout the United States,
Canada, Mexico, the United
Kingdom, Australia,
New Zealand, and Ireland.
2006
On February 27 2006,
Facebook began allowing college students to add high school students as
friends due to requests from users. About a month later, on March 28 2006,
BusinessWeek reported that a potential acquisition of the site was under
negotiation. Facebook reportedly declined an offer of $750 million, and it
was rumored that the asking price was as high as $2 billion. In April, Peter
Thiel, Greylock Partners, and Meritech Capital Partners invested an
additional $25 million in the site. In May, Facebook's network extended into India,
at Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management
(IIMs). The following month Facebook threatened to seek costs of up to
$100,000 from Quizsender.com for copyright infringement for allegedly copying
the "look and feel" of Facebook. On July 25, new services were offered
in the site that would potentially produce additional revenue. A promotion
was arranged between Facebook and iTunes, in which members of the Apple
Students group would receive a free 25 song sampler each week until September
30 in various music genres. The promotion's purpose was to make students more
familiar with and enthusiastic about each service as fall classes approached.
In the early half of August, Facebook added universities in Germany and high schools in Israel, (Haifa,
Jerusalem,
and Qiryat Gat) to its network. On the 22nd of that month, Facebook
introduced Facebook Notes, a blogging feature with tagging, embedded images,
and other features, also allowing the importation of blogs from Xanga,
LiveJournal, Blogger, and other blogging services. This newly added feature
also included the common blog feature of allowing readers to comment on
users' entries. On September 11 2006, Facebook became open to all users of
the Internet, prompting protest from its existing user base. Two weeks later,
Facebook opened registration to anyone with a valid e-mail address (see
below).
2007
On May 10 2007, Facebook
announced a plan to add free classified advertisements to its website, making
it a competitor with established online companies such as Craigslist. This
feature, known as Facebook Marketplace, went live on May 14 2007; Facebook
launched an API that allows the development of applications to be used on the
site, known as Facebook Platform. In
June, the partnership begun the previous year between iTunes and Facebook continued,
with the download service again offering free music samplers through the
Apple Students group. In July, Facebook announced its first acquisition,
purchasing Parakey, Inc. from Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt. In August, the
company was featured in a Newsweek cover story by Steven Levy in the
magazine's annual college edition.
Facebook hired YouTube's
former CFO Gideon Yu on July 24 2007. Gideon Yu succeeded Michael Sheridan.
On September 25 2007, it was
rumored that Microsoft may buy a stake in Facebook. An outright sale of
Facebook is said to be unlikely as founder Mark Zuckerberg would like to keep
it independent.
Site
Features
The Wall
The Wall is a space on each
user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see.
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 friend's 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 ,
whereas previously the wall was limited to textual content only.
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 USD $1.00. The initial selection of gifts was Valentine's Day themed,
and 50% of the proceeds 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. The daily new gift is advertised on every user's home
page.
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,
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. The market place is
available for all Facebook users and is currently free.
Pokes
Facebook includes a
"poke" feature which 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
serve as 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, some users construe it as a sexual advance. This
interpretation of the feature inspired a popular Facebook group titled
"Enough with the Poking, Lets Just Have Sex," which, as of
September 2007, has more than 250,000 members.
Friends often engage in what
is known as a "poke war," where the poke is exchanged back and
forth continuously between two users by using the "poke back"
feature.[citation needed]
There are several new
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 prompts the status update
with "(User name) is..." and Facebook users fill in the rest.
Status updates are noted in the "Recently updated" section of a
users' friend list.
Many students have protested
the required "is" referring to people who speak languages other
than English and legitimate sentences that cannot be changed to accommodate
the "is" grammatically (e.g. "(User name) just got a
haircut.").
Events
Facebook events are a way
for members to let friends know about upcoming events in their community and
to organize social gatherings.
Applications
On May 24 2007, Facebook
launched the Facebook Platform, which provides a framework for developers to
create applications that interact with core Facebook features.
Among the most popular
applications are Top Friends, which allows users to select and display their
favorite friends; Graffiti, which gives users a visual version of Facebook's
wall; and iLike, a social music discovery service that features concert
information and a music trivia game, similar to the one featured on the iPod.
Third-party websites such as Adonomics, which provides application metrics,
and blogs such as AppRate, Inside Facebook and Face Reviews have sprung up in
response to the clamor for Facebook applications. Even games such as chess
and Scrabble are available.
On July 4 2007, Altura
Ventures announced the "Altura 1 Facebook Investment Fund,"
becoming the world's first Facebook-only venture capital firm. On July 10,
2007 Bay Partners announced appfactory, a venture capital seed program
dedicated solely to Facebook applications.
On August 29 2007, Facebook
changed the way in which the popularity of applications is measured, in order
to give more attention to the more engaging applications, following criticism
that ranking applications only by the number of users was giving an advantage
to the highly viral, yet useless applications.
Tech blog Valleywag has
criticized Facebook Applications, labeling them a "cornucopia of
uslessness."
As of October 11, 2007,
there are more than 5,500 applications.
Facebook Markup Language
Facebook Markup Language is
a subset of HTML. It allows Facebook application writers to customise the
"look and feel" of their applications, to a limited extent.
Facebook Video
During the time that
Facebook released its platform, it also released an application 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. This feature was expected
to increase competition with MySpace.
However, the Facebook Video Application does not allow sharing
videos outside of Facebook. Users will not be able to export or download
videos from Facebook. Despite this, a Greasemonkey Userscript was posted on
Userscripts.org which allows both the downloading of Facebook Videos and the
embedding of Videos on sites outside of Facebook's
website.
Model of the Domain
Model of the Facebook domain
 The diagram on the right, expressed
using the UML standard notation for class diagrams, represents a subset of
the information managed by Facebook. It gives a concise picture of the
various entities, relations and fields stored in the database.
For instance, the diagram
shows what fields are associated with the notion of Job, School, CreditCard,
ScreenName, and so on (see the corresponding yellow boxes representing
classes).
Note that this is a
conceptual class diagram: it describes the concepts rather than the
implementation and the detail of the database. For more information about
technical models, see FQL - Facebook Query Language (SQL-like query
language).
Infrastructure
For running its operations
Facebook use the software bundle known as LAMP. Steven Grimm, an
infrastructure engineer at Facebook, writes in his blog:
Almost
all our servers are running open-source software. Our Web servers use Linux
and Apache and PHP. Our database servers run MySQL. We use memcached to help
keep the site snappy. Some of our behind-the-scenes software is written in
Python and Perl and Java, and we use gcc and [[Boost C++ Libraries|Boost]]
for the parts that aren't. Our developers use Subversion and git to keep
track of their work. The list goes like many Web sites,
we use it from top to bottom.
Sale Rumors
In 2006, with the sale of
social networking site MySpace to NewsCorp, rumors surfaced about the
possible sale of Facebook to a larger media company. Zuckerberg, the owner of
Facebook, has said that he does not want to sell the company and denies
rumors to the contrary. He has already rejected outright offers in the range
of $975 million, and it is not clear who might be willing to pay a higher
premium for the site. Steve Rosenbush, a technology business analyst, suspects
Viacom.
In September 2006, serious
talks between Facebook and Yahoo! took place for the acquisition of the
social network, with prices reaching as high as $1 billion. In October, after
Google purchased video-sharing site YouTube, rumors circulated that Google
had offered $2.3 billion to outbid Yahoo!
Peter Thiel, a board member
of Facebook, indicated that Facebook's internal valuation is around $8
billion based on their projected revenues of $1 billion by 2015, comparable
to that of Viacom's MTV brand and based on shared target demographic
audience.
In September 2007, Microsoft
approached Facebook, proposing an investment in return for a 5% stake in the
company. Microsoft would pay an estimated 300 to 500 million dollars for the
share. Other companies such as Google have also expressed interest in getting
a stake in Facebook.
Use
in Investigations
The information students
provide on Facebook has been used in investigations by colleges,
universities, and local police. Facebook's Terms of Use specify that "the
website is available for your personal, noncommercial use only",
misleading some to believe that college administrators and police may not use
the site for conducting investigations. However, there are settings on
Facebook that allow a user to make his/her profile private (only people the
user approves may see his/her profile).
Alcohol Policy Violations
There have been incidents
where colleges and universities use Facebook to investigate underage drinking
and violations of dry campus policies or discover them while investigating
other incidents. For example, several Residence Community Advisors at Northern Kentucky University
lost their jobs when pictures were discovered of them having casual drinks in
a residence hall one night towards the end of semester. Many high schools have also begun to use
Facebook to crack down on underage drinking and other illegal activities.
In response to the
monitoring, some students have begun to submit "red herring" party
listings. In one case at The George
Washington University, shown at CakeParty.org, students advertised their party and
were raided by campus police. The police found only cake, no alcohol, and
later claimed the break up had been triggered by a noise complaint.
Other Investigations
·
There
have been several incidents where candidates in student government elections
used Facebook for campaigning in a way that was not permitted by their
campaign policies.
·
At
the University
of Mississippi, a group
of students were brought before the University's Judicial Board in April 2005
and forced to remove a Facebook group that professed their love for a
professor in a sexually suggestive manner.
·
One
Miami University student was arrested after
he set a composite sketch of a rape suspect as his profile picture.
·
Others
have been punished for rushing the football field at Penn
State (Many "I rushed the
field" groups were created after the Nittany Lion football team defeated
Ohio State in October 2005, and State
College Police and Pennsylvania State Police used the groups to arrest those
who they believed rushed the field in violation of school policy).
·
A
Duquesne University student was punished for
hate speech against homosexuals.
·
Four
Syracuse University students were reprimanded
for harassing an instructor in a Facebook group and were threatened with
expulsion, though the final result was academic probation. On the other hand,
University of Louisville students who had created a
Facebook group to complain about a professor's teaching shortcomings helped
lead to the dismissal of their targeted instructor in February 2006, and the
students were not punished.
·
In
February 2007, following the hit-and-run death of freshman Carlee Wines, University of Connecticut
campus police used Facebook to link the suspected driver, Anthony P. Alvino
of Lindenhurst, N.Y., to the university. By following
leads via Facebook, police learned of the connection between Alvino and his
girlfriend, Michele A. Hall, a UConn student. Alvino was charged for the hit-and-run,
while Hall was charged with helping cover it up and hindering prosecution.
·
In
April 2007, just days after the Virginia Tech shooting, a student at the SUNY College
at Cobleskill was remanded into psychiatric care and suspended from college
after posting a photo of himself on his profile with a vaguely threatening
message underneath. This story became even more controversial as it grew
across the news.
·
It
has been reported that staff at the University of Oxford
have been looking at students' Facebook pages in investigating poor behaviour.
Staff have been searching through photos in an
effort to root out poor conduct from students celebrating their exam results
and graduation. The Oxford University Student Union has urged students to
restrict access to 'friends only' in an effort to protect privacy.
·
In
July 2007 the University
of Kent issued a
strongly worded statement protesting that a group of students had created a
hate page about a library employee, which the site quickly withdrew.
·
In
November 2006, two students were expelled from the University of Texas
fraternity Pi Kappa Alpha based on racist images posted on Facebook.
Other Uses of Profile
Information
Because of
users' concern over who was viewing their photo albums (pictured), Facebook
staff added privacy controls such as Limited Profile settings to restrict
their display.
 Some
employers look at Facebook profiles of prospective employees or interns.
Information posted on Facebook is potentially accessible to employers with
faculty or alumni accounts.
Information posted on the
site is sometimes distributed publicly. Students who are related to
politicians or other public figures have had screenshots of their profiles or
photo albums taken and shared in an attempt to embarrass their relatives.
After profile information was posted on Gawker and Wonkette, two popular
weblogs, Facebook's Chief Privacy Officer, Chris Kelly, sent the sites'
publishers cease and desist notices. Also, a group calling itself Performing
Politics, Inc. publicly displayed the profiles of students at Yale who had
made comments about homosexuality in an effort to show evidence of homophobia
at the school.
In Wrentham,
Massachusetts, State Senator Scott P. Brown
(R) was invited to speak at King
Philip Regional
High School to talk
about his position against gay marriage. During the speech, Brown read
verbatim several posts attacking him from a Facebook group dedicated to a
pro-gay rights history teacher. Often he included both verbatim profanity and
the names of the students who wrote them.
Militant members of the
Animal Liberation Front (ALF) in Britain
have threatened students at Oxford
who support the university's proposed South Parks
laboratory saying they are legitimate targets for attack. A counter-activist
group called Pro-Test has warned students not to support the lab's
construction on Facebook as they believe ALF is monitoring the site.
After the death of a
teenager under suspicious circumstances in July 2007, the Ottawa Citizen used
comments from a facebook memorial group in a slanderous manner to create a
dramatic article on the front page city section showing the irresponsibility
of the teen and his peers. The Citizen claimed that the teens thought they
were supermen and were invincible and that they had no respect for the law.
This sparked outrage amongst the users who wrote many letters to the editor
of the Citizen, and the Citizen released an unofficial apology on the wall of
the group.
According to Facebook's
privacy policy, Facebook reserves the right to release the information that
users provide (including favorite movies, television shows, books, music,
etc.) to organisations.
Facebook was used by
reporters in the Hendrick Hudson Senior Prank Bomb case to contact the
involved students. The reporters had a facebook profile and left messages encouraging
them to talk to the press about the legal case at hand.
Responses
Schools Block Access
The University of New Mexico
in October 2005 blocked access to Facebook from UNM campus computers and
networks, citing unsolicited e-mails and a similar site called UNM
Facebook. After a UNM user signed into
Facebook from off campus, a message from Facebook said, "We are working
with the UNM administration to lift the block and have explained that it was
instituted based on erroneous information, but they have not yet committed to
restore your access." UNM, in a message to students who tried to access
the site from the UNM network, wrote, "This site is temporarily
unavailable while UNM and the site owners work out procedural issues. The
site is in violation of UNM's Acceptable Computer Use Policy for abusing
computing resources (e.g., spamming, trademark infringement, etc.). The site
forces use of UNM credentials (e.g., NetID or email address) for non-UNM
business." However, after Facebook created an encrypted login and
displayed a precautionary message not to use university passwords for access,
UNM unblocked access the following spring semester.
The Columbus Dispatch
reported on June 22 2006, that Kent
State University's
athletic director had planned to ban the use of Facebook by athletes and gave
them until August 1 to delete their accounts.
On July 5, 2006, the Daily Kent Stater reported that the director
reversed the decision after reviewing the privacy settings of Facebook.
Organizations Blocking
Facebook
Ontario government employees, MPPs, and
cabinet ministers were blocked from access to Facebook on government
computers in May 2007. When the
employees tried to access Facebook, a warning message "The Internet
website that you have requested has been deemed unacceptable for use for
government business purposes". This warning also appears when employees
try to access YouTube, gambling or pornographic websites.
The New South Wales
Department of Education and Training has also blocked all users (students and
staff) from accessing Facebook, as have many other government departments in Australia.
Facebook Memorials
A notable ancillary effect
of social networking websites, particularly Facebook, is the ability for
participants to mourn publicly for a deceased individual. On Facebook,
students often leave messages of sadness, grief, or hope on the individual's
page, transforming it into a sort of public book of condolences. This
particular phenomenon has been documented at a number of schools. Previously,
Facebook had stated that its official policy on the matter was to remove the
profile of the deceased one month after he or she has died, preventing the
profile from being used for communal mourning, citing privacy concerns. Due
to user response, Facebook amended its policy. Its new policy is to place
deceased members' profiles in a "memorialization state".
Additional usage of Facebook
as a tool of remembrance is expressed in group memberships on the site. Now
that groups are community-wide and available among all networks, many users
create Facebook groups to remember not only a deceased friend or individual,
but also as a source of support in response to an occurence such as 9/11 or
the Virginia Tech massacre in April 2007.
Customization and Security
Facebook
is often compared to MySpace but one significant difference between the two
sites is the level of customization. MySpace allows users to decorate their
profiles using HTML and CSS while Facebook only allows plain text. However, a
number of users have tweaked their profiles by using "hacks." On
February 24 2006, a pair of users exploited a cross-site scripting (XSS) hole
on the profile page and created a fast-spreading worm, loading a custom CSS
file on infected profiles that made them look like MySpace profiles. Incidentally,
both users are now employed by Facebook. On April 19 2006, a user was able to
embed an iframe into his profile and load a custom off-site page featuring a
streaming video and a flash game from Drawball. He has since been banned from
Facebook. On March 26 2006, a user was able to embed JavaScript in the
"Hometown" field of his profile which imported his custom CSS. In
each case, Facebook quickly patched the holes, typically within hours of
their discovery. In July 2007, a user discovered a cross-site scripting (XSS)
hole in the Facebook Platform that could inject JavaScript into profiles,
which was used to import custom CSS and demonstrate how the platform could be
used to violate privacy rules or create a worm. This hole took Facebook two and a half
weeks to fix.
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