Zuckerberg created a website called Facemash in 2003 while attending Harvard University. The site was comparable to Hot or Not and used “photographs collected from online questionnaires of nine houses, placing two next to each other and asking users to choose the ‘hotter’ person” [17]. Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo views in its first four hours. [18] The site was sent out to several mailing lists of campus groups, but was closed a few days later by the Harvard administration. Zuckerberg faced expulsion and was charged with security breaches, copyright infringements, and breaches of confidentiality. Ultimately, the charges were dropped. [17] That semester, Zuckerberg expanded the project by creating a social research tool before the art history graduation exam. He uploaded all of the art images to the website, each accompanied by a comment section, and then shared the site with his classmates. [19]
Facebook is a student directory containing photographs and personal information. [18] In 2003, Harvard only had a paper version [20] along with private online catalogs [17] [21]. Zuckerberg told The Harvard Crimson: “Everyone at Harvard talks a lot about universal Facebook … I think it’s silly that it would take a university a couple of years to get there. I can do it better. than they can, and I can do it in a week. “ [21] In January 2004, Zuckerberg coded a new website known as “TheFacebook”, inspired by Crimson’s editorial on Facemash, stating, “It is clear that technology is needed to create a centralized website, readily available … benefits a lot. “Zuckerberg met with Harvard student Eduardo Saverin and each agreed to contribute $ 1,000 to the site. [22] On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched TheFacebook, originally hosted on thefacebook.com. [23]
Mark Zuckerberg, co-author of Facebook, in his dorm room at Harvard, 2005
Six days after the site launched, Harvard seniors Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra accused Zuckerberg of intentionally deceiving them into believing he would help them create a social network called HarvardConnection.com. They claimed that instead, he used their ideas to create a competing product. [24] All three filed a complaint with Crimson and the newspaper opened an investigation. They later sued Zuckerberg, paying in 2008 [25] for 1.2 million shares (worth $ 300 million in Facebook’s IPO). [26]
Membership was originally limited to Harvard College students. More than half of the students were registered during the month. [27] Dustin Moskowitz, Andrew McCollum, and Chris Hughes joined Zuckerberg to help drive the website’s growth. [28] In March 2004, Facebook expanded to Columbia, Stanford and Yale. [29] It then became available to all Ivy League colleges, Boston University, New York University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and, subsequently, most universities in the United States and Canada.buy facebook teacher
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In mid-2004, Napster co-founder and entrepreneur Sean Parker — Zuckerberg’s unofficial advisor — became president of the company. [32] In June 2004, the company moved to Palo Alto, California. [33] Later that month, he received his first investment from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. [34] In 2005, the company dropped the “the” symbol in its name after purchasing the Facebook.com domain name for US $ 200,000. [35] Domain owned by AboutFace Corporation.
In May 2005, Accel Partners invested $ 12.7 million in Facebook, and Jim Breuer [36] added $ 1 million of his own money. The high school version of the site launched in September 2005. [37] Eligibility has expanded to include employees of several companies, including Apple Inc. and Microsoft. [38]
