What is "facebook"

Facebook Developers

Facebook offers a series of Apis and development tools which allow interaction with the contents of the network. The platform offers a set of programming interfaces and tools that allow developers to integrate with the "Open Graph" of personal relationships and other things such as music, places and Facebook pages. Applications on facebook.com, external websites and devices are allowed to access the graph.

History

Facebook is a social networking site and service that was launched on February 4, 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook Inc. On October 4, 2012, Facebook reached 1 billion active users. An average of 316,455 people register each day on Facebook since its creation on February 4, 2004. Users must register before using the site, after which they can create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when updating their profile. In addition, users can participate in other users' common interest groups, organized by school, work or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists as "work people" or "close friends". The service name derives from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the beginning of the school year by some university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other. Facebook allows any user who declares to be at least 13 years old to become a registered user of the site.

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and his college roommates Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The composition of the site was initially limited by the founders to Harvard University students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. The site gradually added support for students at several other universities before opening for high school students and eventually for anyone aged 13 or over. However, based on May 2011 data from Consumersreports.org, there were 7.5 million children under 13 with Facebook accounts, violating the site’s own terms of service.

A January 2009 study by Compete.com ranked Facebook as the most widely used social network worldwide by monthly active users. Entertainment Weekly included the site on their "best of" list, saying: "How did we live before chasing our ex-boyfriends, remembering our co-workers' birthdays, pissing off our friends and playing an exciting Scrabulous game before Facebook?" Quantcast estimates that Facebook had 138.9 million unique monthly visitors to the United States in May 2011. According to Social Media Today, it was estimated that by April 2010 about 41.6% of the American population had a Facebook account. However, Facebook’s market growth began to stabilize in some regions, with the site losing 7 million active users in the United States and Canada in May 2011. Facebook filed a request for an initial public offering on February 1, 2012.