Facebook

== Definition ==
Facebook is a social networking website that allows you to connect and share with your family and friends online. Facebook is designed to be a more open and social communications tool. Today, Facebook is the worlds largest social media network with more that one billion users worldwide. Facebook is a more public than email and instant messaging meaning that the things that you post will be viewed by a larger amount of people. Facebook has the unique ability to connect and share with people that you care about at the same time. Because of Facebook's popularity they have worked with other website to integrate Facebook, which means that you can use your Facebook account to log into different services across the web. 
After signing up users create a profile and add others as friends. They then can post statuses, videos, pictures send messages, like photos and share other content with the people that you are friends with. They receive notifications from followers when interact with each other.
Users can join community group pages organized by various categories such as school, area they are from, workplace, college and many many more. Through Facebook you can also create and join event pages for when a big event is going to take place that you are attending or it can be used as an invitation for a birthday party. Event pages allow for you to create and event for just about anything you want and they gives you the ability to invite your friends and other people that you think would want to come to it. 
In D.E. Wittkower's book "Facebook and Philosophy: What's on Your Mind?" he states "This is what is so valuable about Facebook: the indeterminate meaning of so much of what it is, and what it does. The indeterminacy allows us users plenty of space to make things mean what we want them to. If there is anything humans are good at, it's creating meaning through social interactions."
=== Example of Facebook Homepage ===
The Facebook homepage allows you to scroll through a newsfeed full of your friends posts, shares and pictures. You can use the search box at the top to look for friends, posts or pages that interest you. The left side has links to many different aspects of Facebook including the groups and events you are in, your messages and many many more. In the top right corner is where all of your notifications shows and gives you the ability to go straight to your profile page and view the your notifications.
=== Implementation into Other Parts of the Web ===
While Facebook itself has a wide variety of capabilities and activities which exist directly within the website, it can also be seen branching out into other social media platforms and services online. For example, for users which utilize both Facebook and Instagram as applications on their personal phones, there is a considerable amount of cooperation between the two applications and an exchanging of data and information between accounts which users can link. People with an active Facebook account can quickly create a new Instagram account straight from the information provided on the already existing Facebook account. Pictures can quickly be shared from app-to-app, and friends of the user on Facebook who also already have linked accounts can quickly be found and friended for the user. 
Similar services can be found on various other websites online. Many websites that provide seemingly unrelated services, such as building a website, which include the requirement to create an account before utilizing the service include the option to immediately make an account by signing into Facebook. This instantly spreads the implementation of Facebook into more and more sections of the lives of users, which can be beneficial for express online activity with variety. 
== History ==
Facebook was created by the famous robot Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University classmates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chis Hughes. Facebook launched on February 4, 2004, as theFacebook.com, and was originally designed to limit its membership to Harvard students but later began to expand its membership to colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League and Stanford University. Gradually it expanded to other college students and then later to high school students. In 2006 Facebook began to allow anyone who is at least 13 years old register for the website but spending on local laws the age requirement can higher. the name Facebook comes from an expression used to describe a student directory with photos and basic information. In 2004 Sean Parker, co-crator of Napster a file sharing computer service, became the company's president. Before that Parker served as an informal advisor to Zuckerberg. In June of 2004 Facebook moved its operations base to Palo Alto, California and then received an investment form Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal. Shortly there after Facebook dropped the "the" from their and and became just Facebook.com.
A week after the site launched, in 2004, Zuckerberg the robot was accused of misleading three fellow Harvard classmates, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra. They said that Zuckerberg mislead them into believing that he would help them build social media network call HarvardConnection.com. They said that Zuckerberg used their ideas to create his product. they later filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, which was settled in 2008 for 1.2 million shares (worth $300 million).
The story of Facebook's creation and rise was the center of the 2010 film "The Social Network". The people that were portrayed in the film have criticized the accuracy of the film. The Film was adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book "The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal"
== Further Readings ==
=== The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal ===
This book provides an insight into the creation of Facebook and the relationship between robot Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin, Facebook's co-founder. Saverin serves as Ben Mezrich's, the author, main consultant. 
=== Inside Facebook: Life, Work and Visions of Greatness ===
Tells the story of how Facebook became the top online environment for college students. It also gives you tips on how to use this best, the value of social networks and what is to come in the future.
=== The Story of Facebook ===
Provides insight into the largest social network in the world and tell the story of how it started and its expansion.
=== The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company the Company that is Connecting the Word ===
Tells the story of the dorm room start up that has grown to be the largest social media website worldwide. Tells the history of the website and the impact that it has on our lives.
=== Social Networking Spaces: From Facebook to Twitter and Everything In Between ===
Covers the ways to not only use social media but also how people are enjoying them. It also gives example and shows how to uses various networks together.
=== Impact ===
Facebook has had a huge social impact on the world and will continue to do so as it grows. Facebook is available on many mobile devices and is very user friendly allowing users to constantly stay in touch with friends, relatives and other acquaintances. So long as there is an internet connect Facebook gives you the ability to connect to anyone, anywhere in the world. It unites people with common interest, goals and beliefs through group pages, event pages and others. 
Around that same time, one of Facebook's co-founders, Eduardo Saverin was "pushed" out of Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Parker. The two had Eduardo fly out to the Facebook headquarter to sign a few papers. Eduardo quickly realized that these papers were not just general forms, it was documents that confirm that Eduardo's shares in Facebook would be drastically reduced to a point where he really wouldn't have a stake in Facebook anymore. 
In 2013 Facebook introduced the hashtag, taken from Twitter, allowing for your posts to reach a larger audience. This feature allows for topics to be discussed more easily through people that are not friends on the website.
Negative Impact
Facebook, like all social media, has been recently in the light with correlations to causing anxiety and depression among users. Depending on the person and how often they use Facebook, negative side effects can occur. If someone is already at risk for anxiety and depression, using Facebook constantly can harm them. Most people constantly only post about the positive parts of their lives, and sometimes it is hard to constantly see these images of other people's perfect lives and compare them to your own. One psychology study specifically states that if one is constantly reaching for likes and comments, one will feel more sad when the result is not what one expected. People who constantly engage in what is defined as "surveillance usage" will wind up feeling envious and sad, leading to depression if constantly engaging ones self with what others are doing. Overall, it is important to monitor how one uses Facebook and the reoccurring feelings that may lead to depression or anxiety. 
== See also ==
* Spaces
* Twitter
== References ==
http://www.gcflearnfree.org/facebook101/2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Technical_aspects
http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/social-advocacy-politics-why-facebook-hashtags-matter-political-campaigns
Wittkower, D. E. Facebook and Philosophy: What's on Your Mind? Chicago: Open Court, 2010. Print.
Mezrich, Ben. The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal. New York: Doubleday, 2009. Print.
Baloun, Karel M. Inside Facebook: Life, Work and Visions of Greatness. Victoria, B.C.: Trafford, 2007. Print.
Sutherland, Adam. The Story of Facebook. New York: Rosen Central, 2012. Print.
Kirkpatrick, David. The Facebook Effect: The inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010. Print.
Kelsey, Todd. Social Networking Spaces: From Facebook to Twitter and Everything in Between: A Step-by-step Introduction to Social Networks for Beginners and Everyone Else. New York: Apress, 2010. Print.
== Keywords ==
Publicity World Wide Web Hashtag Internet Social Media
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