Facebook is a social network service that was launched in February 2004 and is operated and owned by Facebook, Inc. The networking website now has more than 600 million active users (Jan 2011). Users may create a personal profile, add other users as friends and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile.
Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg along with college friends and fellow computer science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. Initially the website's membership was limited by the founders to Harvard students; soon however it expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students. And now anyone can use the website! (As long as you are over thirteen years old.)
A study done by Compete.com in January 2009 ranked Facebook as the most used social network service by worldwide monthly active users, having overtaken its main competitor MySpace in April 2008. It is estimated by Social Media Today that as of April 2010 41.6% of the U.S. population has a Facebook account; that is almost every other person.
It is an example of Web 2.0 because it allows its audiences and consumers to interact with one nother trhough comments, the 'like' button, messaging, the 'poke' button, writing on each other's walls and using the instant messaging application to communicate quickly with friends and family. The interactivity on FaceBook shows that it is an example of Web 2.0 because it means that the people using the Internet are no longer passive like they used to be.
It is used by all people aged from 13 years upwards; the oldest FaceBook user is 102. People use FaceBook because it allows them to quickly connect and communicate with their family and friends even if these pople were lving in different countries.
