Facebook

Facebook is an American social networking company. Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes founded Facebook in 2004 while they were students at Harvard University. More than one billion people use Facebook every day, and half of them use it every day. Facebook is the largest social networking site in the world. The headquarters of the company are located in Menlo Park, California.

Facebook is free to use, and the company makes most of its money from advertising. Users can create profiles, upload photos, join preexisting groups, and start new ones. The site has numerous components, such as Timeline, on which users can post content and friends can post messages; Status, a feature that enables users to alert friends to their location or circumstance; and News Feed, which updates users on changes to their friends’ profiles and statuses. Chats and private messages can be sent between users. Unlike many other Web sites, Facebook lets users approve content with a Like button.

Facebook’s popularity stems in part from cofounder Mark Zuckerberg’s insistence that members be transparent about themselves; users are forbidden from assuming false identities. The company’s management believes that transparency is essential to forming personal relationships, sharing ideas, and building society as a whole. Also, Facebook users’ bottom-up, peer-to-peer connections make it easier for businesses to connect with consumers.