Facebook
Whenever she gets home from school she sits on her squeaky computer chair and turns on the computer anxiously waiting for the screen to turn bright and welcome her. She double clicks Internet Explorer and it takes her to her homepage…username: nbhs_student@gmail.com, password:*********. Twelve new notifications, she is overwhelmed with excitement because she had so many notifications since this morning at six. Jonny commented on your photo, Becca, Josh, Sarah, Margie, and Richey like your status, Izabella posted something on your wall, Ethan wrote on your wall: hey wanna have a mov…. Jeremy wants to add you as a friend. She spends 20 minutes replying to all the post and comments then looks on her “most recent newsfeed” seeing what her friends are up to, occasionally commenting or liking a status update. She stares at the screen hoping a new notification will show up . . . nothing. She logs off and repeats in about an hour, constantly checking Facebook. Facebook has been a part of our lives since 2004. It started as a hobby of College student Mark Zuckerberg, went through trouble with ConnectU, and got so big it was even made into a hit movie.
A world wide phenomenon, Facebook, has over 350 million active users and more than 55 million status updates each day. (Earl, Hafner, Heussner, Hsu, and Matyszczyk 1) It’s no secret Facebook has become a part of most of our lives. Facebook was created and commenced in February 2004 and has since blown up all over the world. Creator, former-Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, originally called it “thefacebook” and targeted the social network site to high school students up to college teens; little did he know kids and adults of all ages would use the site. Mark started it just as one of his sideline projects with some financial help from Eduardo Saverin. Months later, Facebook and its main idea spread across all of Harvard where it was very well acknowledged. That is when it all started; months later Mark Zuckerberg and two other Harvard-students, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, teamed up to help him make Facebook even bigger. Soon after, the idea of Facebook blew up. Zuckerberg and Moskovitz dropped out of school to run Facebook, a dream of theirs. In August 2005 “thefacebook” was changed to Facebook and Facebook was bought for two-hundred thousand dollars! (Yadav 1)
Of course Facebook had its troubles. In 2004 Facebook was almost closed. On September 2, 2004, ConnectU.com, a fellow social networking site, threatened to shut down Facebook and file a lawsuit against Facebook and its five officers. The suit asked the court to shut down the site and force Zuckerberg and thefacebook.com to turn over the profits from his so-called breach of contract. ConnectU said that Mark stole their source code while he was in their employment. Zuckerberg viewed what he did at ConnectU as “informal,” contributing less than a day of work then quitting. (Mcginn 1) In conclusion Mark denied the allegation and the lawsuit was dismissed. Looks like Facebook wins. (Yadav 1)
Facebook is such a phenomenon that it was turned into a movie called “The Social Network.” The movie is about the founding of Facebook and the lawsuits it faced. The movie was directed by David Fincher and features a cast including Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Brenda Song, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella and Rooney Mara. The film won the “Hollywood Ensemble Award” from the Hollywood Awards, and was a hit in the box office. During “The Social Network’s” premiere weekend in the United States, the film opened at number 1, grossing an estimated $23 million in 2,771 theaters. Then in its second weekend it was number 1 again, dropping only 31.2 percent. The movie made huge amount of money worldwide, in the end making over 180 million dollars. In the film, Mark creates Facebook in order to impress a girl and gain popularity nationwide. The real Zuckerberg says that “The thing the film makers can’t wrap their head around the idea that someone might build something because they like building things,” then adding “the movie did have every signal shirt or fleece I ever owned right!” (Zuckerberg 1)
Facebook was only created 6 years ago but it seems like it has been here forever. People of all ages have Facebook accounts, using it to socialize, promote a band or product, build their business, and other reasons. Celebrities use it to update their fans and talk about their newest albums or upcoming shows. It has grown so much that it is now more popular then the huge MySpace.com that everyone used to have and is the number two most searched website on the internet behind Google. Also the average teenager spends over fifty-five minutes a day on Facebook. Facebook is still growing and getting better it will be around for a long time.