Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Social Networking and Facebook
Users share a variety of information about themselves on their Facebook pro les, including photos,
contact information, and tastes in movies and books. They list their \friends", including friends at
other schools. Users can also specify what courses they are taking and join a variety of \groups" of
people with similar interests (\Red Sox Nation", \Northern California"). The site is often used to
obtain contact information, to match names to faces, and to browse for entertainment. [4]
Facebook was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerburg, then a Harvard undergraduate. The site
is unique among social networking sites in that it is focused around universities { \Facebook" is
actually a collection of sites, each focused on one of 2,000 individual colleges. Users need an
@college.edu email address to sign up for a particular college's account, and their privileges on the
site are largely limited to browsing the pro les of students of that college.
Over the last two years, Facebook has become xture at campuses nationwide, and Facebook
evolved from a hobby to a full-time job for Zuckerburg and his friends. In May 2005, Facebook
received $13 million dollars in venture funding. Facebook sells targeted advertising to users of its
site, and parters with rms such as Apple and JetBlue to assist in marketing their products to college
students.
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